


if you must die, sweetheart, die knowing your life was my life's best part

by bravestyles



Series: You [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cancer, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Leukemia, M/M, Sickfic, descriptions of cancer related things, spoiler alert: nobody dies, talk of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22759483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravestyles/pseuds/bravestyles
Summary: Harry has cancer, and Louis can't breathe.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636324
Comments: 34
Kudos: 148





	if you must die, sweetheart, die knowing your life was my life's best part

**Author's Note:**

> title: you - keaton henson
> 
> disclaimer: i don't know anyone in the band/involved in this story.

Exhaustion isn't exactly a fair warning sign. With them being on the road more often than not, Louis would be more worried if Harry  _ wasn't  _ tired all of the time. Whether it's fair or not, though, Louis notices almost instantly how drowsy and sleepy Harry is nowadays. In between and sometimes even during interviews, as soon as they get off stage, almost any possible time there is, Louis turns around and Harry's asleep or looking like he’s going to be any second. 

Looking back, Louis shouldn't have waited so long to mention it. He just thought that Harry already knew that something was off;  _ he _ was the one sleeping constantly, after all. Louis lets it go and pushes it off for weeks until it's almost impossible to ignore. That time comes when they're supposed to be sound-checking and Harry's not on stage. It wouldn't matter if it were anybody else, but Harry’s usually early to soundcheck most days to chat with the crew. 

Something's wrong. Louis can feel it.

"Where's your boyfriend, Tommo?" Liam asks after five minutes of waiting. The crew is getting impatient and their manager of the day keeps frowning and flipping through their schedule like five minutes is going to destroy everything. 

It might.

Louis scratches at his stubble nervously, every part of him screaming at him to go find him, but then there's that small, insignificant thought of looking desperate and stupid that keeps him from running with worry. "I don't know," he says slowly, looking around the stage like Harry's going to appear out of nowhere. 

"Well, go find him," Zayn says shortly as he scrolls through something on his phone. He's probably fighting with Perrie over text, like he always is these days. They're madly in love, but they're also on opposite schedules and on opposite sides of the world and it gets too much for them a lot of the time. 

Louis hesitates, dances on his feet for a beat too many. Harry's probably just playing with Lux and lost track of time or something, he's sure it's nothing. "Fine," he agrees around a lump in his throat. Harry has told him before that he worries too much, and Louis told him it's because he loves him, but he can't help but feel like he's trying to convince himself it's going to be nothing to cover up the fact his gut is screaming at him that something's wrong.

"I'll go with you." Niall slings an arm around Louis' shoulder and drags them forward, makes them stumble all the way back stage and through the hallways towards the dressing rooms. When the two of them crash into a poor crew member just trying to do her job, Niall finally releases Louis and they walk like civilized human beings to Harry and Louis’ dressing room. 

He's curled up on the couch covered by a thick blanket when Louis and Niall find him. It's worrying for many reasons; one, Harry had slept on the way to the venue an hour ago; two, it's almost uncomfortably warm in Harry's room as it is, there's no reason for that blanket that he seems to be clinging onto; and three, it takes four of five times of Louis saying his name and shaking him for him to wake up.

Harry's long hair is sticking to his forehead with sweat. He's also shivering. "I'm so tired," he croaks out, his voice proving that he's been asleep for a while. He snuggles further into his pillow and blanket. "Cold, too. Why's it so cold in here?"

It's not cold. It's not fucking cold. It's July,  _ summer _ , in California of all places, it's not bloody cold. Louis ignores his worry and sits back on his heels so it's easier to find his balance. "Do you feel sick?" He pats at Harry's arm soothing, and the warmth of his skin sneaks its way through Harry's clothing and to Louis' fingers. 

"Tired. Just tired. And cold. Tired and cold."

"It's not cold in here, Haz," Niall tells him. He looks worried, too. "Does he have a fever?"

Louis reaches forward to place his hand on Harry's forehead just like his mum did to him when he was a little boy, and it's hot and sweaty. "You're burning up, baby," Louis murmurs quietly. 

"No. I'm cold."

"We'll get you a coat then," Louis tells him. "We have to be on stage right now. Soundcheck. You're late."

"Oh, shit." Harry sits up too fast for someone with a fever. He reaches around Louis to grab his boots and he slides them on quickly. "I'm sorry, so sorry, fuck." He stands to his feet and sways a bit, but Louis right there next to him to steady him. His shirt is drenched in sweat. 

"It's okay, love. I'm late all of the time." He grabs Harry's blanket and drapes it around Harry's shoulders when he sees him shiver. "You can skip if you don't feel up for it."

"No, let's go."

Harry is obviously exhausted and uncoordinated on stage, so Louis tells him to sit down, that it doesn't matter if Harry forgets the choreography tonight. Harry doesn't wait for a chair and sits down on the stage, becoming swamped in his blanket. His voice is only a little rough, but it sounds dirtier, sexier, so Louis can easily ignore it. So long as Harry can perform on stage tonight, a little edge to his voice doesn't matter.

When did he start caring about his career more than his boyfriend’s health? It makes him feel incredibly guilty for a few hot seconds until everything comes to a roaring stop. 

Louis' staring at the floor during  _ What Makes You Beautifu _ l, bobbing his head with the beat because that's the only bearable part of the song anymore, when he hears Liam curse quietly into his microphone. He glances up, interested, and then he sees Liam rushing towards Harry with a sweat towel. 

It's a nosebleed, nothing serious. It's the big, thick tears that are rushing down Harry’s cheeks and the way he looks completely and utterly terrified that makes Louis' chst ache wildly. He looks like a right mess, crying and bleeding in a pile of soft blanket. 

"Hey, hey, Haz, it's alright," Louis tells him softly, coming towards him. He cards his fingers through Harry's sweaty hair and snatches the towel from Liam's hands like he's done something wrong, so he can be the one to dab at Harry's nose. "It's just a little nosebleed, love, no need to be upset."

"I don't feel good," Harry cries. He reaches forward and grabs Louis' shoulders before pulling him in for a hug, which makes it very difficult to help Harry's bleeding nose. He doesn't say anything, just holds Harry and lets him cry and bleed into his shirt. "I feel like shit. I've felt like shit for weeks."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Louis asks quietly.

Harry tucks his face against Louis’ neck. "I didn't want to bother anyone."

And after that, they let it go. Everyone lets it go. They're all worried and uncertain, but they still let themselves forget about it because that's easier than accepting something could be wrong with Harry.

-

It becomes a little harder to ignore, especially for Louis. It's a week later and they can't cuddle anymore during the night. Harry becomes sweaty and agitated then, even after his fever has passed. They settle for hooking their ankles around one another's and holding each other's hands, and even if it's a bit awkward and makes it hard to fall asleep, it's enough for both of them. 

Harry's nose starts bleeding again. He's sleeping soundly, his grip now loosened on Louis' hand, and a thick trail of crimson red blood comes from his left nostril. It makes Louis' stomach swoop in fear and he quickly flicks on the light and fetches a towel to clean it up. 

When he gets back into bed, Harry's awake and clutching his nose, sobbing loudly. The blood is dripping out of his hands and onto the hotel's white sheets, and Harry's fucking crying and everything hurts inside of Louis right now. 

"It keeps happening," Harry chokes out, voice sounding muffled around his hand. "Happened this morning in the shower and last night while you were asleep, I don't -- what's happening to me?"

"I don't know," Louis whispers. He doesn't trust his voice to speak any louder. He carefully moves Harry's hand from his nose and wipes at the blood lightly. 

"I'm so tired all of the time," Harry tells Louis, like he doesn't already know. "I'm always cold but I'm constantly sweating at night, and," he sobs loudly, "my fucking nose won't stop bleeding and I don't know what's happening to me."

"Nothing is happening to you," Louis says, almost snaps. Nothing can happen to Harry, it fucking can't. Louis is too in love with him for anything bad to happen. 

"I'm losing weight like crazy." He sounds like he's begging, pleading, for Louis to help him or make it stop. "I can't even fit into my jeans anymore without them sliding down. Caroline says I'm down two sizes. That's not normal, Louis. Something is wrong with me."

"You're fine," Louis hisses stubbornly. He dabs and dabs at the blood until it stops coming, and then he throws the towel off the side of the bed.

Harry drags himself closer and they cuddle for the first time in five days, and he cries silently into Louis' shoulder. "I'm so scared," he whispers hoarsely. 

"You're going to be fine, darling. I promise."

What a fucking stupid promise to make. 

-

Harry starts complaining of his bones hurting three days later. 

"Your bones can't hurt," Louis tells him distractedly. "That's, like, not a thing. Maybe you strained a muscle or something." He can see Harry sitting behind him in the mirror as Lou fixes up his hair. Lux is sitting next to him, staring up at him with wide eyes. Harry won't play with her; he has her doll gripped tightly in his fist and that's it. "You did fall pretty hard on stage last night."

"Maybe," Harry replies tiredly. 

Lou glances at Louis in the mirror and he can tell immediately she's debating on whether or not she should push Louis' buttons right now. He's in a relatively good mood -- can you be in a bad mood in Canada? -- and she seems to decide whatever she has to say will be worth it if Louis gets annoyed. "You should see a doctor, darling." She's talking to Harry but she's staring at Louis in the mirror still. "Just to get a quick check-up, you know? Could be nothing, but it," she pauses, pulls at Louis' hair rougher than necessary. "You should be sure nothing's going on, you know? Just to be sure."

Apparently you  _ can  _ be in a bad mood in Canada, and apparently all you need is Lou Teasdale poking her nose in your business. Before he can kindly tell her to fuck off, Harry's straightening up and he's nodding. "We have less than twenty shows until we get to England. I'm going to go see someone then."

It's stupid to feel betrayed about something like this, but Harry hadn't told Louis that. He hadn't told him he felt that poorly. If Louis knew that, he would've dragged Harry to the doctors much sooner. Or maybe he wouldn’t have, because Harry was very clearly begging him for help three nights ago, and Louis didn’t do anything about it. 

He’s just so, so scared. 

Lou smiles. "That'll be good for you, doll. Why don't you take Lux to go see the stage?"

Harry doesn't want to, Louis can tell by the way he closes his eyes for a moment and seems to give himself a tiny pep talk to convince himself he can get to his feet. He's shaky when he finally stands, and Lux seems confused, but he grabs her hand and guides her out of the room and towards the wrong direction of the stage. Louis doesn't tell him. 

As soon as Harry goes, Lou stops working on his hair. She sets everything down and puts her hands on her hips, glaring at him through the mirror. "You need to take care of your boy," she says sternly.

"I -- “

"No, Louis. He's feeling very poorly right now, and he's scared to tell you because you keep shutting him down. He tells you he's hurting and you tell him he's not? That's not fair, love." She sighs loudly, moving to sit down on the make up chair next to Louis. "He's ill, Louis. And you can't go blaming it on a fever anymore. He needs to see a doctor."

"He'll see a doctor at home." He doesn't recognize the stone cold edge to his voice.

She looks angry as her hands curl into tiny fists. "That'll be a mistake, Louis. Something is seriously, seriously wrong with him and the only reason why everyone is looking passed it is because of his job. If he's too ill to his job, lots of people lose lots of money and they would rather see him kill himself out there every night then speak up because of it."

"He's _ fine _ ,” Louis says, because he is, right? Harry’s fine. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine. He has to be. 

"He's terrified," she argues. "Have you seen the bruises on his arms and legs? They're so bad I thought only a human could do something so bad as that. I thought you were  _ hurting _ him for a second, Louis. Don't you realize how serious that is?'

Louis gulps. He'd never, ever touch Harry like that. Never. But they haven't had sex in weeks, Harry has always been too tired, so if there's bruises on Harry's skin, Louis wouldn’t know it. "What bruises?"

"They're all over him, babe. Just look." She reaches over to brush her thumb across his cheek. "He told me he doesn't want to disappoint you lot. He thinks you and the rest of the boys will think less of him if he goes to a doctor."

"What?" His mouth is suddenly very dry and he feels sick to his stomach. 

"He wants to see someone, Louis. He wanted to weeks ago, but he's scared and he won't do it without you next to him. He needs you, and I know you're scared too. I can see it. But you need to understand right now that if you keep ignoring this to protect yourself, he could die."

He yanks away from Lou's hand, looks at her incredulously. "Shut the fuck up," he snaps, standing up from the chair. "You need to stop talking right now. He's fucking fine. He bruises easily, so fucking what? You don't know anything."

She stands, too. "Niall's worried. Zayn, too. I've asked Liam about it but he's in the same boat you are: too scared to do anything about it. Even Lux asked me what's wrong with him, 'what's wrong with Uncle Harry?'. If you don't get him to a doctor soon, I'll take him myself, or -- I don't know. I'll tell someone who'll do something about it. He can't wait until Europe. It's going to kill him."

Louis briskly walks away from her, not sure what he'll do or say if she keeps talking. Harry's fine, Harry's going to be fine, he's fine.

Harry's not fine. Lou was right; there's bruises all over him and he's not okay, he's not. 

"Who's hurting you?" Louis demands sternly, and he knows he's being stupid. He knows that those bruises on Harry's back are from something scarier than someone's touch. It pains him knowing that Lou initially thought that he was the reason for these, the black and blue and purple marks clustered on his back and sporadically placed everywhere else. The only reason why Louis can see them now is because Harry's crouched down in front of Lux on the stage.

"Lou," Harry says softly as he stands to his feet. His shirt covers the bruises once again, but now that Louis knows they're there, it does nothing. "Nobody's hurting me. You know that."

"But the bruises," Louis gasps. He feels like he can't breathe. 

"I fell on stage last night."

"It shouldn't have bruised so badly, Haz, what the hell."

Harry shrugs and then he winces slightly. He slowly and cautiously wraps his arms around his middle and licks his lips. "I've been bruising pretty bad lately. The last time we had sex I had bruises everywhere." He glances down at Lux, who isn't paying any attention to their conversation. "We hadn't even done it that rough, Louis. But my thighs and my bum and my hips were black and blue for days."

A small cry leaves Louis throat before he can help it. It catches the attention of Lux and a crew member working nearby, and it makes Harry's lip wobble. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because," Harry says quietly. "I'm scared, too. I thought if I ignored it. . . but it's gotten worse. It's  _ getting _ worse. I don't even know if I can perform tonight because my bones feel so sore and it hurts to move." He looks broken at the idea of not being able to be on stage, and Louis wipes angrily at the tears on his cheeks. 

"We're going to fix this," he tells him. And they will, because they have to. 

It’s just going to be a persistent bug, though. They’ll give Harry some antibiotics and send them on their way, and it’s not going to be a big deal. It can’t. 

-

As fate would have it, Harry's fever returns with full-force. He's trembling with shivers and he keeps telling Louis that it hurts to breathe, and he's sobbing again, louder than before, into Louis' neck. He climbed into his lap a while ago, and the crinkly armchair in their dressing room probably wasn't made for the two of their weight combined, but Louis doesn't say anything; all he does is hold him fiercely as his brain scrambles to come up with a solution.

"Lou," Harry chokes out. It sounds pained. "Right here really, really hurts." He's motioning to the left side of the bottom of his ribcage, and Louis doesn't know what's there. He's not a fucking doctor. 

"I'm sorry, love. I don't -- I don't know what to do, tell me what to do."

"Make it stop," Harry begs, and he's back to crying into Louis' collarbones. "Make it stop, make it stop, please, Louis. Make it stop, god, please."

"I can't, Harry." Everything inside of him is crumbling to pieces. He goes to smooth over the spot where Harry's hurting with his thumb but Harry howls in pain, jolts away from it harshly.

"Don't touch it, don't touch it, please don't touch it."

He's sweating profusely but he's also shaking with chills and Louis doesn't know what to do. They're supposed to be on stage in seven fucking minutes and it's only a matter of time until someone comes looking for them to yell at them for not being backstage. Louis doesn't know what to do.

"It hurts so badly. Everything hurts so much."

Louis wraps his arms tighter around Harry and clenches his eyes shut. He tries thinking what he would do if this was one of his little sisters and the answer is obvious: take them to the hospital, run past every red light and cut off twenty people to get there. But it's so much harder to make that decision with Harry, for some reason. 

"I feel like I'm dying," Harry moans. 

"Don't say that. You aren't."

Harry pants softly onto his skin. "Feels like I might."

That's what makes the decision easy for Louis: his selfish, selfish fear of Harry dying on him. He opens his eyes and cards his fingers through Harry's hair one last time (no, not the last, not the last). "I've got to take you to the hospital, babe."

Louis expects Harry to scream and kick, shout at him that he's not going. Harry takes this job very seriously and he doesn't miss shows because of something as small as a fever. Harry doesn't do any of that. Instead, he sniffles quietly and nods once. "Please." He's in actual pain, not that Louis questioned it beforehand. It's just really hard to hear. 

"Can you walk by yourself?"

Harry shakes his head. 

"Okay, that's okay." Louis' trying desperately to be the strong one here, but he's not sure it's working. His voice is shaking and so are his hands, and Harry has always been able to see right through him, anyways. "I'm going to carry you, okay? Just wrap your legs around my waist."

"I'll try."

Even though Harry has lost weight, he's still taller than Louis will ever be, so it's difficult to make sure he doesn't drop Harry or lose his balance, and Harry's not holding on very tightly. His arms are lazily latched onto his neck and his legs are barely out of the way as Louis walks.

"You can't leave me, okay?" Harry sounds miserable, and his voice is still thick with tears. "If something's wrong, you can't leave. You can't leave me."

"I would never, Harry." He adjusts Harry's weight in his arms so he can open the door. "Don't be daft."

"Promise me, Lou. Promise me you won't leave."

It's too hard on his heart to hear. "I promise, love. I promise, shit. I'd never even dream of leaving you."

Harry's quiet after that, aside from heavy breathing and quiet cries. Louis' crying by the time he runs into someone, and it's Niall and their stage manager, who looks livid.

"You five need to be on stage in two minutes," she snaps. Her eyes fall on Harry's shaking frame and for a minute, they soften. Their handlers are almost never soft with them. "What's wrong with him?"

"He needs to go to the hospital," Louis chokes out. "Something's wrong with him."

Niall's biting on his thumb, eyes wide. 

"No," she says, voice hard again. "I'll get a medic, that's what they're here for. Don't move. Stay right here. I'll tell them to hold the curtain."

"He needs a fucking doctor," he snaps, but she's already halfway down the hallway. She's speed walking, almost running; even a stranger can see that something is terribly, terribly wrong. 

"What do you think is wrong?" Niall asks, voice small.

His hands are slipping down Harry's thighs. He readjusts them. "No clue."

"Hurts," Harry offers, like neither of them can see the amount of pain Harry's in. "Hurts worse than anything ever has."

"I know, baby. I know. Hush."

Their stage manager is back, and now she's joined by two medics. One's a male, one a female, and they're both wearing big, bulky outfits and serious expressions. The female's the one who tells him to set Harry down, and Harry whines and whimpers loudly all the way down to the ground. His eyes are cloudy with something Louis doesn't recognize. It's terrifying. 

"His side is hurting him," Louis tells them, distraught. He motions to where Harry had complained about with one hand, the other clutching onto Harry's hand painfully tight. 

"That's his spleen," the male says to the female. "If he's in this much pain, it's probably ruptured." He turns to the stage manager. "You need to call 9-1-1. Tell them it's an emergency."

Obviously it's a fucking emergency if they're calling the fucking police, but of course Louis doesn't say that. He just closes his eyes and presses his lips firmly over Harry's burning knuckles. 

"What are these bruises on his stomach?" the lady is asking. Louis opens his eyes to see they've lifted up Harry's shirt and that her name tag reads Zoe. The man's reads Samuel. 

"I don't know," he says tiredly. "They've just been popping up out of nowhere lately."

"How long has he had a fever?"

Jesus Christ, asking Louis questions isn't going to help anything. They need to fix him. "He had one a while ago. This one's only been here for a few hours."

Zoe nods. "Has he been complaining of any fatigue, weakness, dizziness, or weight loss? Maybe pain or tenderness in his bones?"

Louis freezes. They know what's wrong with him, and it doesn't sound good. "Yeah," he chokes out. "All of that except dizziness. What's -- " he sees Samuel close his eyes briefly with a tight frown. "Is that bad? What's wrong with him?"

Zoe avoids eye-contact suddenly. "The doctors at the hospital will run their tests on him and will let you know. In the meantime -- "

"No," Louis snaps. "You need to tell me, right now, what the fuck is wrong with him."

"Sir," Samuel says, "you need to remain calm. We can't tell for certain anything right now. The only thing we can know for sure is that he's experiencing pain in his spleen, and it could rupture at any time if it hasn't already."

"So fucking fix it!"

"That requires surgery," he tells Louis calmly. "We can't do that from here."

Louis' about to start ripping off people's heads off when Harry says his name. He almost breaks his neck by jerking it so fast to look down at him, and Harry looks worse off than before. "Let them do their job, Louis."

"But you're sick, love. You're sick."

Harry tries to smile judging by the way the muscles in his cheek twitch. "We already knew that, didn't we?" His eyes flutter closed, and his chest remains heaving. "Just don't leave me."

"I'm not, stop fucking saying that."

"Don't yell at me. I know you're scared but so am I, so please don't yell at me."

Louis wants to cry. He already is. "I'm sorry. I love you." Harry doesn't respond, and Louis' frown deepens. He reaches over to trace Harry's cheekbone and he gets no reaction. "Hey, hey. Haz, c'mon. I love you." Again, nothing. "He's passed out," Louis tells them urgently. "Wake him up."

"We can't do that, sir. He most likely passed out from the excessive pain."

"You're not even doing anything!" Louis snaps, glaring at them. "You're just sitting there. Do  _ something _ !"

"We can't do anything until we're certain what's going on," Zoe tells him. "We can't do the proper tests necessary from here. We have to wait until the ambulance comes."

So Louis does just that; he waits. It only takes about three minutes for the ambulance to come and for a pale, lifeless looking Harry to be loaded into the back of the truck on a stretcher, but it feels like a lifetime. Less than ten minutes ago, Louis was willing to wait as long as it took for whatever is wrong with Harry to go away. Now, he can't wait five minutes and he's being forced through hours. 

They have to take out Harry's spleen, a splenectomy they called it, because it had ruptured. They suspect it had ruptured in the dressing room, and Louis' quick to reject that theory. Harry's insides couldn't have been exploding while he was in Louis' lap -- he won't accept that. It's a quick, easy procedure that they do every day. It's nothing to worry about, or so they keep telling him, but Louis' pretty sure that it's something to worry about. They're taking out a fucking organ. He doesn't know what a spleen is, but he's sure it does  _ something _ important. 

Since Louis is Harry's emergency contact and his mum isn't anywhere close to Canada, she's in fucking Europe, Louis' in charge of answering questions and filling out forms. He has to be the one to nod when they need permission to do their tests and the surgery, and Louis is so frazzled by the end of hour one, he's not sure he can keep this up much longer. 

Harry got out of surgery a half hour ago, though, and since then, Louis can breathe better. They're not talking to Louis -- "the surgery went well, we'll talk to you as soon as we can" -- and it's freaking him out. Surely, if the surgery went as well as they're saying it did, he would know something else and doctors wouldn't keep coming and going from his room. 

"Here."

Zayn's voice nearly knocks Louis off his chair, and he's not sure if he'd been sleeping or not. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he doesn't remember being awake, either. It's like he's just been drifting for the last few minutes. 

"Thanks," Louis mumbles, takes the coffee from Zayn's hands. 

Zayn takes the seat next to Louis where Niall had been sitting earlier. He had wandered off somewhere a while ago and has yet to return. "You know," he sips on a coffee of his own, "he'll be fine without his spleen."

"I don't even know what a spleen does."

"I didn't either, but I looked it up." He looks proud of himself, and Louis has to look away. He's in no mood for positivity. "It's important for your immune system. Like, defending off bacteria and stuff. But Harry's healthy and stuff, always on those juice cleanses or at the gym. He'll be fine without it."

"He fucking better be." They had asked Louis if he'd rather them remove it completely or risk the high possibility of other treatments not working and it bursting open again. Louis had texted his mum for help, but they needed an answer faster than she could respond. He had told them to take it out entirely, that he couldn't watch Harry go through it again. His mum’s text came five minutes too late, but thankfully she advised him to make the decision he already had.

"He's strong."

"Shut up. I know he is."

"He's going to be fine."

"You don't know that."

"I do, Louis. He's -- "

"It's not like his bloody spleen has been rupturing for weeks." Louis can feel the pocket of anger near his heart explode, and it feels good to finally snap. "He's been ill for weeks, Zayn. Almost a month and a half since he's been so tired all of the time. It takes a minute for an organ to burst. Something's wrong with him, and it's not just his fucking spleen."

Zayn deflates at that. He must've actually thought all they had to worry about is a popped spleen. Louis knows better than that, he's not dumb. Zoe and Samuel knew that it's more than a ruptured spleen, too. His mum had texted him a small, dismal, _ I'm not going to scare you. Wait until the doctors tell you something,  _ and that really put the fear inside of him. Jay knows something's the matter, too. 

"Maybe we could look it up,” Zayns offers, although he sounds hesitant.

"We're not going to ask Google what's wrong with my boyfriend." The Styrofoam isn't enough for his fingernails to dig into. "We're going to wait for a doctor. They'll tell us."

Zayn shrinks away into his chair, probably understanding that Louis needs to cool off right now. He's panicked and scared and feeling like the whole bottom of his world is about to fall out, and he's not strong enough to hold it up. Liam, who's sitting on the other side of Louis, seems to think it's his turn to talk now. 

"Did you read the statement that management put out?"

Louis' completely prepared to snap, but when he hears that, he's undeniably curious. He hasn't given a second thought about the thousands of fans they let down tonight. Maybe that makes him a terrible person. Maybe he doesn't care. "No. Let me see."

He takes Liam's phone once he gets the Twitter message up that was tweeted from their band account. After reading it, If it was his phone, he would've thrown it. 

_ 'Due to unforeseen circumstances, One Direction will no longer be performing at the Investors Group Field in Winnipeg, Canada. Harry Styles was rushed to the emergency room a few minutes before showtime. He's now healthy and resting peacefully in his hospital room. Styles is expected to make a full recovery and we assure you, his health condition is nothing to worry about, although your thoughts and prayers are appreciated. Refunds will be issued immediately. One Direction will still be performing in Minneapolis on July 26, 2015. Thank you.' _

"We aren't performing in forty-eight fucking hours, are you kidding me?" Louis snaps, tightening his grip on Liam's phone, impossibly angry. "And he's not healthy yet. And he's not fucking sleeping, he's passed the fuck out from drugs."

Liam's in full serious mode. His forehead is wrinkled with concern and there's a few more lines underneath his eyes than Louis remembers. "I know, Louis. Niall's on the phone with them right now to see if they'll take it down and post a new one."

"And?"

"Well, Niall's not back, is he?" Liam sighs and pries his phone from Louis' hand. "He's not hanging up until they take it down."

At least Harry isn't alone in all this. If something's wrong with Harry, Louis won't be forced to handle it on his own. He couldn't do it on his own. He's about to respond when Dr. Roy, the one who had told Louis that she'd speak with him later, comes around the corner with a frustrated look on her face. She's almost crushing her coffee cup like Louis is, and he watches her rip the pony tail out of her hair without any hesitation. Her orange hair looks like fire as she shakes it out, and Louis' heart sinks when she walks past him and towards the nurse's desk. 

"Do we have Mr. Styles' test results yet?" 

Louis cranes his neck to listen, his anger with Management momentarily diminished. 

"Not yet. We'll let you know as soon as they come in." The nurse behind his desk looks tired and worn out, and she doesn't seem to be helping at all. 

"I told you to order a rush on them."

"We did. You sent them up barely an hour ago.”

She nods once, and then sighs. “Can you just tell them I’d appreciate it if they moved a little quicker?”

He wants to snap at her, judging by the way he briefly rubs at his temples. "I'll let them know." He picks up a phone and punches in the numbers too roughly, rolling his eyes as he puts the phone to his ear. He stares at her as he murmurs something into the phone, and Louis wants to punch the guy in the throat for being so rude about someone's health, about  _ Harry's _ health, but he doesn't because Amelia looks about two seconds from doing it herself. He nods into the phone and puts it back into its cradle. "They're sending Holly down with them now."

A jolt of fear runs rampant against Louis' spine. He obviously wants to know what's wrong with Harry, but at the same time, it's not going to be anything good. Louis' never been one for hope, he saved that all for his little sisters and his mum, and he doesn't want to know how close he is to losing Harry. 

He watches her nod and then she's walking towards him. This time, she doesn't pass him but she stops right in front of him. "He's awake," she tells him slowly. "He's been asking for you. Before you go in, you need to make sure your hands are clean and that you refrain from breathing without a surgical mask if you've been feeling ill lately while in his room. He's extremely susceptible to infections right now. We need to take every precaution there is."

Louis nods. "Can I go see him?"

She nods. "After you wash your hands."

He almost runs to the bathrooms to wash his hands, twice, and he shoves open the door with his bum to make sure he doesn't re-dirty his hands. He speed walks to Harry's room, and once he's there, he hesitates on touching the doorknob. He doesn't know how serious this is, so he opens the door with his left hand and makes a mental note of only touching Harry with his right. 

There's a lot less tubes than Louis' expecting. There's one taped to Harry's wrist that disappears into his skin and that's it; nothing is traveling up his nose or down his throat. There's fewer machines than Louis' expecting, too. There's one that's connected to his tube and another with big numbers and a pulse reading that is connected to a cover over his finger. He's staring at Louis blearily, eyes barely open, but he's smiling a little and Louis feels himself give into the idea that maybe Harry's okay after all.

"Hey, love," Louis murmurs quietly. He doesn't feel like he's allowed to speak any louder in the quiet atmosphere. He sits on the crappy plastic next to Harry's bed, and only now does he let himself feel how tired he is. "How are you feeling?" he asks as he takes Harry's left hand with his. 

"I love you too," Harry croaks out as a response. His smiles a little wider, tongue darting out to wet his lips. "Heard you say and couldn't respond. I love you too."

It makes his heart hurt. "Thank you." Because he really does need to be thanking Harry, doesn't he? Harry Styles chose Louis to fall in love with, a miracle in itself, and he continuously gave him that love for five years. He should be thanking him every day.

"I feel okay, by the way." His fingers tighten on Louis'. "Better than I have in a while, at least. That's good, right?"

No, it's not, not if Harry needs his veins pumped with morphine to feel okay. "Of course it is," he lies. And then because he can't help himself: "Have they told you anything? Like, about your health or something. I don't know. All they told me is that you're okay."

Harry furrows his eyebrows. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"Of course it is."

"Do you want something to be wrong with me?" He has this scandalized look like he truly believes Louis could ever even think about that. 

"Of course not, Harry. Don't start." He sees Harry's lip wobble and oh; he's scared, that's where this is coming from. Harry's scared and lashing out because of it, and Louis' too tired to have seen it before he took the bait. "Hey, hey. I'm sorry."

"I'm fucking terrified." He chokes on a small sob, and Louis tightens his grip on his hand. 

"No, none of that, come on." He goes to grab Harry's face, but he turns his hand away. Louis settles for resting his hand over Harry's heart instead. 

"Have you noticed these dots on my arms?" He lifts the arm Louis isn't holding and shoves it into Louis' vision. Small, red dots litter Harry's skin. They're faint, but not faint enough to not notice. Why hasn't he noticed? "I didn't either." Tears are leaking out of his eyes as he looks back at Louis. "How did I not notice them?"

"What do they mean, darling? Did they tell you what it's from?" His brain is whirling, searching every corner of his skull as he desperately tries to remember if he's ever heard or read anything about tiny dots littering your boyfriend's arm. He comes up blank. 

"The nurse told me it's called petechiae." He wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. There's already a bruise surrounding the tube's entry into his skin. "It's from, like. God, I don't remember. Something about blood, I don't know. Broken blood vessels." He's trembling. "She said it could be from a number of things, things that aren't worrying. But I'm still so scared, and I don't know what to do about it."

Louis bites down harshly on his bottom lip to refrain from crying. He has to be strong here, he can't let Harry know he's terrified, too. That's all he's feeling, though, and he's not sure how to hide it. "I called Anne," is the best thing his brain can come up with. 

It immediately makes Harry's face go soft. "Is she coming?"

"Yeah. The earliest flight isn't 'til morning, but she'll be here."

Harry nods, eyes wide. "And your mum? Is she coming too? I want her here. Please, Lou, she's like a second mother to me."

He'll never know how much that means for Louis to hear. It's probably the best thing that Louis could ever, ever hear, and the way it falls so easily from Harry's lips means everything to him. "I'm sorry, love. She can't be here right now."

Harry's face crumbles. "Why?"

Louis tries to keep it light. "Because, love, she has a hundred kids to look after at home. She sends her love, of course, and she'll be here the minute she can manage a day. But she's got work and kids and something about Lottie needing her for something."

"They can all come. Please, Louis. She knows about these kinds of things."

"God, kid, you're breaking my heart." Louis tries to laugh but it falls flat and Harry's frown gets deeper. "I'll try, okay?" He reaches out to push the hair out of Harry's face. "I'll tell her how much you want her here, and she'll find a way to make it work. You know she can't resist you."

Harry starts crying then. Hard, not just small pathetic tears running down his cheeks. Louis doesn't know what he said or what he did, and he doesn't know how to fix it. He's never felt more worthless and useless and confused as he does now. 

"What if I'm dying, Louis?" 

Louis wishes he could go back in time and take back wanting to know what Harry's thinking, because he can't take this. He can't take Harry being terrified of death and fearing the worst, because Louis' biggest fear in life is Harry leaving him. It's stupid, and there's probably a hundred other things he should be more afraid of, but that's it for him. He found the love of his life at eighteen, and he's terrified of Harry leaving him too soon because Louis will never, ever find someone better than him. He couldn't even try. Harry is it for him, and Harry is lovely and smart and funny and not only can't Louis lose him, but millions of people will be lost and scared without Harry on this planet. 

"You aren't." He's standing now, tossing his weight from one foot to the other nervously. He's hovering over Harry but from a distance, uncertain of what to do. Uncertain of how to make sure Harry stays right there, healthy and happy. 

Harry takes a long, deep breath then and closes his eyes for a second, his hand fiercely holding Louis'. He's talking himself down from the edge of a breakdown, and it's almost impossible to look away from. Harry takes stuttering breaths and keeps nodding to himself, and when he opens his eyes he's back to being Harry. 

It terrifies Louis; how many times has Harry had to do that?

"I'm not scared of dying," Harry tells him, voice hollow. "I'm not. But I'm not ready. I'm not ready for it to happen now. We've only been together for five years, we're supposed to have so much more than that. That's not fair. I'm only twenty-one, that's too fucking young to die. I refuse to force Mum to bury me. I can't go until I become an uncle and a father -- kids, Lou. I want to have fucking kids, I want to have kids. I can't die before I have kids."

Louis' heart is seconds away from stopping. It's abundantly clear that Harry has thought about this a lot, that he's almost one-hundred percent sure he's dying. And Louis kept pushing it off, kept changing the topic like it was nothing. Harry thinks he's dying and he's had to cope with the idea alone. Louis made him cope with the idea alone, how's --

"And I'm not stupid," Harry spits. He looks as though Louis has said something nasty. "Something is wrong with me. My fucking organ didn't explode for nothing. Something is happening to me, and I don't know what it is, but I'm not going to let it kill me. I'm not."

This is horrifying. Harry has already accepted the maybe-fact that he's seriously ill and Louis' missed it. Louis is left in the dust, still trying to cling onto denial. Harry is ready to fight this thing head on, and Louis' still refusing to accept anything is going on. 

"We haven't gotten the test results back," Louis replies, voice thick. He feels stupid, useless. Harry clearly doesn't need him in any of this. 

Harry nods, and even though he looks defensive, a small glimmer of hope twinkles in his eyes. "But the doctors know that something is wrong. Super wrong. I'm pretty sure they know what the tests are going to show. I have no clue, but I've got a feeling they won't be too shocked."

"Stop talking like that," Louis snaps, can't help himself. Harry's driving him mad. "You're fucking fine for now, accept that."

"Stop yelling at me," Harry tells him sternly, almost exactly how he had said it earlier. "I don't like it when you yell at me."

"I'm not yelling at you." But he knows what Harry means; he's raising his voice a bit and he's becoming aggressive, that's what Harry is talking about. "And you never care when I yell at you." He hates the way it sounds, makes him sound like a monster, but -- Harry has no problems letting Louis vent and rant at him, sometimes about him. Harry's biggest flaw is trouble in communication, and he has to actively work on it, and he forces them to talk even the smallest things out. It's how they operate.

"Things are different now."

"Nothing's different now!" Now he's yelling. _ This  _ is yelling. "Your spleen blew up, that's not a fucking big deal. You're alive, Harry. You're fucking alive! Stop acting like you're ready to make a will or something." Harry's jaw clenches. Louis' heart sinks. "Are you actually fucking me? You made a fucking will."

"No, of course not," Harry snaps, but he's picking at the bed sheets with his other hand nervously. "I've thought about it. I was going to meet with a guy soon."

"Harry -- "

"I'm scared, okay?" Harry's calm now, and he's squeezing onto Louis' hand so hard it's going numb. "I know this isn't how you like to do things, and I know I'm jumping the gun here. I know there's a possibility I could still be okay. But what if I'm not? My nose keeps bleeding, I've completely lost my appetite, I'm bruising terribly. I've lost weight, my spleen popped like a balloon, and I've got all these little dots on me. Do you know how scary it is being so tired all of the time? I was going out of my head. If something happens to me, I want to be prepared."

"Harry."

"I have, like, millions of dollars to my name." A muscle twitches in his cheek. "What happens to that all if I die and don't tell someone what to do with it? That's fucking scary to think about."

"What's scary is you've already let yourself accept death, H." Louis' eyebrows are furrowed as his eyes scan over Harry's face. He feels like he's talking with a stranger. "I don't understand how you're already so far along in this thing. We don't even know what's happening."

Harry sighs lightly before smiling for Louis. It's only made to calm Louis, because it doesn't meet his eyes. "I'd rather understand it now when I'm not drowning in fear entirely. If they come in here and tell me I have two months to live, I want to be able to live those two months to the fullest. I don't want to worry about wills and fearing mortality. I want to spend it," his voice catches, "I want to spend it with you and my mum and Jay and my sister and Robin and the boys and your sisters and my friends. I want to spend it living, not preparing to die. You know?"

No, Louis doesn't know. He doesn't fucking know anything about any of this. Harry could literally be completely fine, but he's already gone so far down the path of death and acceptance. He's already making plans. He's preparing to die; he's talking about fucking mortality, what the fuck. Louis is almost certain this isn't a normal reaction to feeling sick for a little over a month. When did Harry do all of this soul-searching?

"Hey." Harry's voice is now all soft and gentle. "I'm sorry if I'm scaring you. This is just my way of dealing with things."

Louis sits back down, not trusting his feet anymore. He feels hollow. "You're not, like, suicidal or something, are you?"

"God, no," Harry laughs. Laughs, like the idea is completely out of the realm of possibility, but he's already allowed death in. "No. I want to be here. With you. I do. It's just. . . something's going on with me, yeah? And I couldn't sit back and do nothing. I didn't want to try and actually figure out what it could be, but I wanted to do something. I just. I don't know. Is that bad?"

"No," Louis blurts. He's too protective over Harry. "No. Maybe you're going a little fast, but it's not dumb. Let's just wait and see what the doctors say, okay? And then we can talk about all the scary stuff."

It's a plan, a middle ground that Louis wants to drag Harry across towards his side but he can't. Louis wants to live in the land of denial, and Harry hasn’t felt denial in a long time. 

Harry agrees though, and tells him to get his butt in his hospital bed and to turn on something good on the telly. 

"Would you like Mr. Tomlinson being present in the room as we discuss the results of your tests?" 

Dr. Roy is back to wearing a high ponytail, but now she's carrying a folder in her hands stuffed with papers that weren't there before. It's Harry's test results, and Louis is bricking it from his spot on the stupid plastic chair next to Harry's bed. 

Harry, who is now sitting up comfortably in bed but keeps pressing the button that releases more pain medication into his system as soon as he's allowed, visibly gulps. "Yes. Please." Neither of them take their eyes off of her as they blindly search for the other's hand. 

She nods and she shifts in her spinning chair. It looks much more comfortable then the one Louis' stuck with. "I'm afraid the tests came back with some. . . unfortunate results."

Louis' closes his eyes, but before his eyelids meet, he can see Harry's face crumble. 

"Unfortunate how?" Harry's voice sounds so, so small.

She clears her throat and Louis can hear her flip through Harry's file. "I'm sorry to tell you this, both of you, but your test results confirmed our suspicions. The enlarged and eventual ruptured spleen, the petechiae, the fatigue, the fever, the nosebleeds -- those are all clear symptoms of leukemia. Again, the tests confirmed this. I'm so, so sorry."

Louis doesn't have time to process it all at once. He can feel his body go light and airy, and his brain starts to feel foggy and panicked, but he doesn't have time to process any of it. 

"That's cancer," Harry almost whimpers. "That's. . . that's fucking cancer, that's -- I don't have fucking cancer, I can't. . ." Louis' eyes are still slammed shut. "I'm only twenty-one. I'm healthy, besides the last month or so. I don't have fucking cancer."

She clears her throat again. It makes Louis jump. "Mr. Styles, your blood tests showed extremely low levels of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. I understand that might not mean much to you right now, that you might not understand what that means, but I am here to answer whatever questions you have."

"Am I going to die?" is the first one out of Harry's mouth.

There's a small pause, and Louis can picture her mouth opening and closing as she scrambles for a response. "I think the most important thing to understand right now is we can't know anything for certain."

It's not a fair response, not in the slightest. It's an easy way to tell someone that they could very possibly die, and she should just be fucking honest with Harry at this point. He has fucking cancer, Harry has cancer, Harry has cancer, this --

There's more papers flipping. She continues speaking. "I see this comes as a shock to you, the both of you. And I want you both to know that this isn't something you have to go through alone. There are support groups filled with people going through the exact same things. I could provide you with that information if that's something you'd be interested in."

Harry ignores her. "What stage is it? Like, that's important, isn't it? To know what stage it's in."

"With leukemia, there isn't your typical five-stage division that you might be used to. There's something called sub-types, and you currently are placed under m2, meaning that the leukemia cells in your body have matured some already."

"I don't understand." Harry sounds breathless.

More papers shuffling. Louis' pretty sure she's trying to keep herself busy. "Mr. Styles, you suffer from a type of leukemia called Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, or AML. It's one of the most common forms of leukemia in adults. What this means is that your myeloid, or your bone marrow cells have mutated to form what we call leukemic blasts. Right now, over twenty percent of your bone marrow cells have mutated."

Louis knows he's going to have to deal with this. He's going to have to process it and understand it and accept it, he knows that. He can't do it right now, though. He'll feel this later. 

"What's the survival rate?" Harry asks, and by the sound of his voice there's no way he's not crying. 

God, Louis doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to know, but he can't take that away from Harry if he does. 

"Well," she starts. She sounds unsure of how honest she should be. "If you choose to do chemotherapy as treatment, about seventy to eighty percent of patients go into remission after the first round." That's good, that's -- those chances are high, thank god. "And the five-year survival rate is about twenty-six percent."

He might puke. He might actually puke. Before he can get a chance to do so, Harry's fingernails are digging into the top of his hand and he's choking out his name. "Louis. Louis. Lou. Please come here." And Louis doesn't have to think about it; his body moves on its own volition and he's practically tripping onto Harry's hospital bed to get his arms arm him as quickly and tightly as possible. 

Harry has cancer, and Louis can't breathe. 

-

It's two months later. They're in a cancer treatment facility in London, where they spend most of their time now. Harry's not responding to the chemotherapy. They're still trying. 

Louis doesn't understand it; the chemo is nearly destroying Harry. There's days that Harry can't stomach anything. He's constantly tired, more than before, and the bruises are still happening. It hurts for him to swallow since the chemo is doing more than destroying the cancerous cells, which it's not even doing properly. And he’s always, always nauseous. But the cancer cells aren't dying, they aren't letting Harry go. They're holding onto him and Louis is so frustrated, Niall breathed on him yesterday and he was seconds away from punching him in the throat. 

"At least I still have my hair," Harry told him yesterday around a small smile. They both know it's only a matter of time before it starts to go; Harry asked Louis to be the one to shave it. 

The thing that baffles Louis the most about all of this is the hope that Harry has. He's so insanely hopeful that he's going to be healthy again one day, that the chemotherapy will eventually start working, and if it doesn't, then the blood transfusion will. He's not in denial or being naive about this, he knows he could very well die, but he won't accept quitting. Giving up. 

Harry's being pumped with poison, and he's still stronger than Louis will ever be.

Cold, socked toes poke at Louis' thigh, breaking him from his thoughts. He reaches down to cup them with his hand to try and warm them and up while he looks at Harry, who's watching  _ Friends _ on a tablet one of the nurses gave him through half-open eyes. There's a purple bruise on his cheekbone. Phoebe accidentally tripped yesterday and her knee crashed against Harry's cheek in slow-motion. Harry had been curled up on the ground next to Doris, and when Phoebe fell into Harry, Louis had very nearly lost it on her. Harry kept telling him that it was okay, that it was just an accident, and Ben had been so nervous that Louis was going to do something stupid that he stood in front of Phoebe and shooed her upstairs. He hasn't talked to her since. It could've been a lot worse than a bruise.

"Will you get me another blanket?" Harry asks. Louis has gotten into trouble too many times for curling up on the comfy chair next to Harry. Harry swears it's the only time he feels warm, when Louis' draped around him. He already has two blankets on his lap and he's wearing a jacket, but Louis nods and reaches down to kiss Harry's forehead. It's warm, and Louis' gut twists at the fear of a fever.

Harry's oncologist, Dr. Finn Bradford, told Louis that Harry's health is insanely fragile. One minute he could be okay, and the next he could be crashing from a fever. A fever could kill him. Infections are to be expected and feared. Harry's hematologist, Dr. Marion Cabot, has got Louis so afraid of infections that Harry coughed a few times last week and Louis drove him to the hospital at four o'clock in the morning just to make sure he was alright. He was. 

The nurses here know Louis by name now, so of course they give him another blanket. Louis thanks her and when he gets back to the section where poor, innocent people's veins are being flooded with poison, and he spots the one that belongs to him, he drapes it around Harry's shoulders.

He looks so, so small. "I wanna go over to Nick's tonight. He has a new boyfriend that he wants me to meet."

Throughout these last two months, Louis has come to terms with how selfish he is. He has gotten into so many tiffs with so many people about Harry, about who gets to spend time with him that isn't him, that he's lucky people still like him. But people just don't understand as well as Louis does. The only people who Louis is comfortable with Harry being with by himself is Anne and Jay, and even then he's bricking it. 

"You need your rest, love."

Harry glances at him with tired eyes. "I know that. I'm gonna take a nap when we get home. I want to go over to Nick's for dinner to meet Tyler."

"Nick has dogs."

"Dogs are okay, Louis." Harry shifts slightly, and the tube that's connected to the pump on his forearm moves with him. Harry cringes at the twinge of pain, and Louis quickly makes sure it's still in place. It is. "As long as they don't scratch me and I don't touch their shit, I'm fine."

He feels like a terrible person as Harry looks at him with eyes that are fully expecting rejection. Louis is usually good with people around Harry as long he's there, and as long as it's at their house, Anne's house, or Jay's house. Other than that, Harry has to practically beg Louis to let him go. 

"Babe," Harry murmurs, eyes blinking at him slowly. "I'm going to be fine. It's just going to be for a few hours, and Gemma's going to come, too. Gemma knows what to do if anything goes wrong."

Louis gnaws on his bottom lip for a few seconds before nodding slowly. "If you feel too tired, you're not going. If anything happens, you call me immediately."

Harry smiles. "I'll text you every half hour, don't worry."

That's all Louis knows how to do lately. 

-

Five hours later, Harry, Gemma, and Louis are piling into a car to go to Nick's for dinner. Louis wasn't supposed to come, wasn't even invited, but Harry felt like he was going to vomit before he left, and he asked Louis to come just in case he did. Louis’ cleaned his puke up countless times now; he doesn’t care, is immune to it, and he’ll gladly come along to make sure that Harry isn’t embarrassed if he does throw up. 

Before they left, Harry tried to eat on his own. It takes him a long time to eat now, to work up the hunger for it and then the energy to actually do the eating. He manages to get through half the plate Louis made for him, and Harry feels kind of stupid about going to dinner when he's already eaten. Louis thinks that's the reason for Harry's quiet behavior during the car ride; he quickly realizes otherwise when the driver pulls into Nick's driveway. 

There's a handful of cars parked outside, and for a second, Louis fears it's the paparazzi. Two days after Harry's diagnosis, word got out about it and the paps have become ruthless ever since. The tour is cancelled until further notice, and Harry's cancer is still the big celebrity talk even two months later. He's been on the cover of so many different magazines looking sick and pale that Louis has lost track at this point. 

Nobody is blind to the fact that Louis is right there next to Harry in every single one of them. 

"You lied to me," Louis hisses as soon as he sees Rita Ora and Friends pile out of a van and into Nick's house. "This is a fucking party, and you were going to come here and -- "

"It's not a party," Harry whispers, head down. "It's a small gathering. And I didn't lie to you."

"There's got to be at least twenty people here, Harry. That's a party."

Harry finally makes eye contact with Louis, and there are big, fat tears glistening in his eyes. "They're my friends. They're doing this for me. I want to be here."

"I don't care." Louis can feel his whole body shaking with rage. "Do you know how many fucking germs are in that house right now, just waiting to get inside of someone with a weak immune system? That's you, Harry. Someone sneezing on you could kill you, why don't you understand that? Why would you take that risk?"

Harry stays silent and goes back to staring at his lap. Louis leans forward and tells the driver to take them back home, but Harry quickly tells him to stay put and grabs a hold of Louis' shirt to pull him back gently. 

"Please, Louis." He looks exhausted. Louis never should've agreed to this. "Nick already gave everyone the run-down of how to be around me right now. Everyone is clean and illness-free. Nobody has so much as the sniffles in that house. Twenty-three people were invited. That's it, Lou. That's all. He even cleaned his house until it sparkled. He sent me pictures."

"Harry." Louis' going to kill Nick and everybody else involved in this. Harry has cancer. Harry already pushes it enough by wanting to walk around outside, and yes, Louis knows how insane he sounds. "No."

A loud, hoarse cough forces its way through Harry's lungs and Harry almost shakes with it. Louis tells himself that it's because of the soreness in Harry's throat, he knows that, but it scares the fuck out of him. 

"The chemo isn't working," Harry tells him, and he doesn't sound sad or defeated. He sounds like he's listed a cold, hard fact about a stranger. "I don't know how much longer I have left if it doesn't start working soon, Louis. Dr. Cabot said my quality of life will be completely shot down in a month, maybe two if it doesn’t start working. Dr. Bradford said three. I want to spend time with my friends."

A chill sweeps through Louis' body and he reaches forward to grab Harry's chin in his hand. It's not rough, but it's probably the harshest Louis has touched him since he's been diagnosed. "You didn't tell me that. Why didn't you tell me that?" 

"I don't like it when you're sad, Lou."

Judging by the way Gemma isn't crying hysterically like Louis' about to, she knew that already. She knew all Harry has is a few months. He's going to kill someone, anyone, any second right now. That's what he does nowadays, too; sadness fades to anger, because he seems to think anger makes him strong for Harry. It doesn't. 

"Please don't cry," Harry pleads, grabbing a hold of Louis' hand on his chin and moving their intertwined hands to his lap. 

Louis feels like he's dying. One, or two, or three months of Harry still being decently comfortable in his body isn't enough, that's not enough, that's not fair. It's not fair. He and Harry are supposed to have decades left together, this isn't fair. He can't lose Harry that soon. He’s still hanging onto the hope they've made a wrong diagnosis.

"Hey," Harry whispers. "Come on, it's okay. We knew that if the chemo didn't work I'd be screwed. It's okay."

It's not. Louis doesn't understand how Harry could think it is. He feels numb and impossibly scared, and he slowly maneuvers himself so his head is resting on Harry's chest. Harry wraps his arms around Louis before pressing a small kiss against his forehead. 

"It's okay, Lou. Don't lose hope just yet."

Harry doesn't mean to, but he constantly makes Louis feel dumb and weak for being scared. He knows Harry's scared and sad, too, but Harry also has hope. Louis doesn't have hope, and Harry makes his feelings seem small and invalidated. 

"I can't lose you that soon," he whispers, his words muffled against Harry's sweaty skin. He's too dazed to think anything of it. 

"You're never going to lose me. I'm always going to be with you."

It's not good enough. Memories of touches and laughs won't be enough to pull him out of bed in the morning. He needs Harry to function properly, he’s pretty sure. 

Louis almost forgets Gemma's here until she speaks up. "Nick's wondering where we are. How long should I tell him it'll be?"

Fingers tighten in Louis' hair. "Don't bother texting him back. Let's go now."

And because Louis refuses to be the weak one, he doesn't object and lets Harry drag him out of the car.

Louis' too dazed to do much but curl up on a undeniably comfortable chair and sip lazily at his drink. It's not alcoholic -- Nick surprisingly banned any mind-altering substances so people's inhibitions aren't lost around Harry -- and he kind of wishes it was. He wouldn't get drunk, obviously, he needs to keep an eye on Harry. But a little shot of something that would take the edge off would be nice. He can't help but remind himself that he could be losing Harry in less than a few months. 

The rest of the twenty-three people who were actually invited are spread out across Nick's house playing separate board games. Nick, Tyler, Harry, and Liam are playing  _ Sorry _ ! a few feet in front of Louis. They're laughing and Liam seems to be losing terribly, and all Louis can do is worry. He can tell the carpet Harry's sitting on is clean, and Nick has shipped his dogs off to a friend's for the night, and still, Louis worries. 

This is the happiest Louis has seen him in almost two months. He's laughing and he's smiling, and he doesn't seem too sluggish or tired at all. There's a bowl of fruit next to him, and surprisingly, Harry has grabbed a few grapes from the bowl more than a couple of times. It's not impossible for him to eat, it's just harder because it's difficult for him to swallow food. The fact he's even trying right now means so much to Louis he could burst with it. 

He sees Harry shiver and wrap his arms around himself. Louis notices, of course he does, but Nick is already grabbing a blanket from the couch and tossing it over Harry's head. Harry laughs, and Louis tries to cling onto that sound to help sway the dread curling in his stomach.

Louis' worked himself near tears when Ben comes wandering over, a giant grin on his face like always. He doesn't wait for an invitation and sits down on the chair's armrest. 

"I don't want to talk right now," Louis says, and he doesn't care that it makes Ben's smile fade. 

"That's fine, kid. Just let me do the talking then." He swings his legs over the armchair so he's facing Louis head-on, and he tucks his socked toes under Louis' leg. He hates when people do that; the only people who are allowed to put their feet anywhere near him are his sisters and Harry. "Harry's worried about you."

Louis sighs heavily. "When is he having all of these secret conversations that I'm not aware about?" 

"We've been texting loads." Ben scratches at his beard for a second before speaking again. "It's only been a few weeks since he's been diagnosed and you already look like the walking dead."

"I'm sorry I can't pretend he's okay like everybody does."

"Nobody's pretending," Ben tells him softly. "He's not okay. We know that. Most of his friends are older; we've all lost someone to cancer by now. We know how serious this is. He seems to be rather hopeful, though, and I think it's important to spend his good days doing things with him."

"What do you mean?" He's sucking a bit on the glass' rim.

Ben sighs. "You've got to know he's not going to be this good for a long time." Louis nods; he knows that. "So you need to indulge in him while you can. Take him out for walks while he can still walk on his own. Go out on dates while he's still up for it. Fuck him while you still can."

Louis' cheeks burn at that. Him and Harry haven't had sex in far too long, but he refuses to purposely do something that'll embed bruises into Harry's skin. 

"You spend all your time worrying about him, and you need to wait to use that all energy for when he can't take care of himself on his own."

Ben's right. Louis knows that. Now, at least. He hadn't thought of Harry getting worse, of him not being able to go on those walks he always asks Louis to take him on.

"I'm terrified we're going to get caught up in a swarm of paps," Louis tells him as he stares at Harry distractedly. "All they have to do is stay fifty meters away from his house; the minute we go past that, it's fair game. If he gets mobbed, it's going to be a disaster." The bruises and headlines would be horrific. 

Ben stays silent, and he knows that he's not sure how to console Louis' fears when they're something to be feared. Instead of answering, he simply watches Harry with him. 

They both notice immediately when Harry's nose starts bleeding. The first drop of blood hits the game board, and Liam's head spins around to find Louis. Nick stretches to reach the coffee table where there's a box of tissues and he passes them to Harry, who accepts them graciously. His hand comes away from his face filled with blood, and he's frowning while Tyler helps him to his feet so Harry can stand without using his bloodied hands against the carpet. 

The room instantly becomes quiet, and Harry's face goes bright red. Louis stands instantly, gently grabs Harry's arm and guides him towards the bathroom. He had used it earlier to splash cold water on his face so he already knows where it is. "I'm fine," Harry keeps mumbling to whoever's staring at him now, "this happens all of the time."

"How are you feeling?" Louis asks him after he's done cleaning Harry's nose. He tilts Harry's head up and tries to see if it started bleeding just to bleed or if he had gotten scratched or something. He can't see anything.

"I'm okay. A little tired." He tightens his legs around Louis' waist from his spot on the bathroom counter. "We're supposed to be watching a movie soon. I think I'm gonna nap then."

Louis doesn't want to stay and watch the movie, but he tries following Ben's advice and nods. "Okay. Everyone will understand." He brushes away Harry's hair from his face, and he's reminded that they're shaving it at the end of this week. Harry doesn't want to see it fall out; he'd rather Louis just get it over and done with. "You're forehead feels a little warm, love." It'd be nothing to worry about if it was any other person.

"I was sitting in front of the fire and I'm embarrassed." Harry smiles slightly. "It's just from that."

"There's nothing to be ashamed of, baby. It happens."

Still, Harry's red the entire time he weaves through people to go back to his spot on the carpet. There's no more blood on the game board and Harry's obviously relieved, but he won't let Louis go sit back down on the chair. Instead, he tells Louis to sit down with him. Louis happily obliges. 

Nick looks worried. "Is that normal? No bullshit, Tomlinson."

Louis sighs. "Normal for people with leukemia, yeah. Don't worry, it's nothing you did or didn't do."

It's clear Harry doesn't want to talk about it so Liam quickly turns the conversation around and Harry sinks into Louis' arms. They continue their game and Tyler wins, and Harry frowns at the way he looks guilty about it, but he doesn't say anything because Nick's declaring that it's time to watch "young Harold's all-time favorite movie,  _ The Notebook _ ". There are cheers and laughs, and Louis seems to be the only one who remembers how this one ends. 

A pin dropping onto Nick's plush carpet could be heard by the end of it. Everyone's realizing what a horrible movie choice this is as if they seriously forgot all the death that's supposed to be romantic at the end, and Louis pretends that he's not bothered by all of the stares and continues to stare at the telly even as the credits roll past.

"Louis. . ." comes a small, slightly familiar voice. He knows it's one of Nick's hipster friends that he's spoken to a few times around the radio station. He doesn't care he forgot her name. 

"Don't." His voice sounds hard and cold, something he doesn't recognize. "You lot are just lucky he's been asleep since the title sequence." 

It's true. Harry's sound asleep against in lap, both of his arms winding around one of Louis'. He's snoring softly, something he's been doing for the last two months that he didn't before, and he knows that if he were awake, Harry would be bawling by now. 

They turn on  _ Mean Girls _ and the laughter throughout the rest of the night is forced and awkward. 

-

Harry wakes up on the car ride home and is instantly attacked by a series of rough, loud coughs that cause Gemma to jolt awake from where she fell asleep against Louis' shoulder. 

"Is he okay?"

Louis frowns, and Harry curls back into his side once he's done. Out of habit, he reaches to touch Harry's forehead. It's still a little warm like it had been earlier, but that could easily be because he tucked his face into Louis' armpit. Louis will have to check his temperature when they get home. 

"I'm okay," Harry says around a yawn. "Throats just a little sore." He rubs at his eyes and yawns again before setting his chin on Louis' shoulder to stare at him. "You should've woken me up. Wanted to say goodbye to everybody."

"You were out cold, darling. I don't think I could've woken you if I tried."

Gemma laughs softly before shoving her phone into Harry's face. He has to blink a few times and lean backwards to be able to read it. It's a text from Anne that reads,  _ come over for breakfast tomorrow? Robin has the day off and afterwards we can go for your chemo. Louis is invited too, of course. _

"I hate chemo," Harry murmurs in response, and it throws Louis off completely. Harry's barely expressed any negative attitude towards any of this, except shock and fear in the beginning. That worry is morphed into something worse when Harry begins to cough again. He turns his head into Louis' neck, which probably should be gross but it's not, and his whole body shakes with how hard he's coughing. Louis' hand tightens around Harry's, and when Harry's once again finished, he groans quietly. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Think I just need some water." He holds the bottom of his shirt and wipes hastily at Louis' neck with it, as if Louis isn't going to go home and sanitize it to make sure the germs can't mutate and get Harry sick. 

They drop Gemma off first, and then they finally get to Harry and Louis' house. There's always that fear of paparazzi, so they walk side-by-side but not touching and with their heads down. Louis' absolutely knackered, but Harry isn't so he forces himself to stay up and play Mario Kart, Harry's choice. Cancer or no cancer, Harry's always been better than him and he wins every single game. 

After a while of them playing in comfortable silence, Harry clears his throat. "Ben told me that we need to have sex."

A small, shocked laugh tumbles from Louis' lips. On the screen, he veers away from a banana. "Ben Winston needs to worry about his own sex life." Harry doesn't respond. "He told me the same thing."

"Do you think he's right?"

Probably. He knows that his dick thinks he's right. "I don't want to hurt you." The game seems silly now, but neither of them pause for the sake of avoiding any awkward tension. 

"If I, like, ride you, there probably won't be any bruising if I went slow."

Louis shrugs. "I don't know if you'd be able to do that for long. You'll get tired."

Harry finally pauses the game and throws his remote to the side. It bounces off the side of the couch and onto the ground with a loud crash, but neither of them care when Harry crawls into Louis' lap to straddle him. On instinct, Louis drops the remote to grab onto Harry's waist, and Harry's fingers pull at the bottom strands of Louis' hair. 

"We haven't had sex in almost three months. Neither of us will need long."

It's true, it turns out. Louis' close to coming as soon as Harry's finished sinking down on his cock, and it doesn't take long for either of them finally reach that tipping point; for Harry it's when Louis can't help but lift his hips to meet Harry's, and for Louis it's when Harry slumps against his chest post-orgasm. He almost forgot how sticky and hot everything got, and usually Harry's the one who gets out of bed to get a flannel to clean them up with, but Louis' barely out of Harry before he's asleep. 

Louis' not disappointed, can't be after that. He wipes both of them clean with a small smile and pulls Harry into his arms before he falls asleep himself. 

Less than two hours later, he wakes up to wet, loud coughing. Louis thinks he's dreaming for a few seconds, but then another cough that sounds incredibly painful pushes its way from Harry's throat. Frantically, he turns on the light next to him and turns to find Harry, but Harry's not there. A bubble of panic sits heavy on his chest as he leaps from the bed and out of their room, relying on only his hearing to find Harry. It's not hard; it'd be harder  _ not  _ to find the source of the thick, wheezy coughs.

Harry looks miserable from where he sprawled out against one of their bathroom floors, shivering and pale from the corner next to the toilet. His eyes are wet and glossy, and for a second Louis thinks his nose is bleeding again because there's blood on his hands, but his nose is clean, there's no blood there. 

And then Harry coughs into the toilet and bile comes spewing out of his mouth in a mix of blood, spit, and tears. 

Louis' clutching onto either side of the doorway, watching with a heaving chest. He feels frozen, unable to do anything but stand here and watch. A loud moan of pain comes from Harry's throat, and his eyes slowly travel up Louis' body. 

"I didn't want to wake you. That's why I left the room."

He's still shirtless, Louis realizes. Harry's shirtless and not wearing any sweats. He's cold on a new-normal basis, and there's no way he's not absolutely freezing right now. Another cough rips its way up his throat. 

"Get up," Louis says, breathless. He rushes forward and grabs onto Harry's arm to help hoist him up, but Harry pushes him away. 

"Stop. I'm not going to the hospital."

"Yes, you fucking are, Harry. Get up." Maybe he's too rough when he grabs and tugs onto Harry's arm, but he doesn't fucking care. This is exactly what he was warned of. He's been told by so many people that this is the exact thing that will kill him if the cancer doesn't. 

"Lou, Lou, please don't, please -- " Harry's knees give way when he starts coughing again, and he falls into Louis chest. Louis catches him and holds him up, and watches in horror as he spits blood onto Louis' shoulder. Harry must realize, then, how bad this is because he wraps one of his legs around Louis' waist and Louis quickly catches on, grabs a hold of the other one and starts carrying Harry down the hall and towards the door as if he doesn't weigh a thing. 

Harry's sobbing into his ear when he's not coughing in it, and Louis knows how bad this is. They've only just made it to the end of the second month of Harry being a cancer patient, and this is already happening. Maybe if Harry had gone to the doctors sooner, if Louis had supported him earlier, he wouldn't be so weak already. But he is, and if he dies tonight, it'll be Louis' fault. 

"Hurts so bad," Harry moans loudly as Louis buckles him into the front passenger seat. He almost thinks against it when Harry's body is sent curling in itself when another wave of coughs hit him, but Louis isn't stupid and he knows he's not going to be driving the safest when Harry's pretty much dying right next to him, and Harry's not going to die in a stupid car crash. "Call my. . . Mum, please. You need to talk. . . talk to her. Gonna wanna be there."

Louis' has never seen someone exhausted and breathless from hacking up a lung until now. "Of course, love, yeah." While keeping his eyes on the road, he fishes his phone from his pocket and gives it to Harry. "Type her number in for me." Harry does so and his hands are trembling when he hands the phone back to Louis. 

Anne is already crying when he puts the phone to his here. "Is he gone?" is her hello, and Louis swears he can feel his heart stop beating for a second. It's two o'clock in the morning and Louis is calling her, of course that's going to be her first worry. 

"No, no. Fuck, no. He's still here." As if to prove it, Harry reaches over to place his shaking hand on Louis' forearm. "He's alive, but he's coughing really badly, and he's -- there's blood in it, he's coughing up blood. It's probably an infection and you know," his voice cracks, "you know what the doctors said about infections."

"He's weaker than he's ever been right now," she tells him, appalled. "He's had chemotherapy for the last six days, Louis, his immune system is totally shot right now. He won't make it -- oh God, he's not going to make it."

Louis knows that, he fucking knows that. That's why he didn't want Harry going to the fucking party, and he swears he's going to kill Nick. It won't do much good since Harry was coughing before they even went inside -- shit, why didn't Louis think anything of it? -- but Louis doesn't care. 

"Just get to the hospital, Anne. I have to go." He hears objections as he hangs up, but they're already here and Louis needs to help Harry inside. It's a struggle, and Louis' not sure Harry's even trying to walk on his own, so half way through the parking lot, Louis picks Harry up and carries him the rest of the way. Harry's hand is shaking violently against Louis' neck, and Louis is pretty certain he's going to allow himself to have a quick little breakdown as soon as the doctors sweep Harry away to do whatever they're going to do with him.

He shoves the door open with one and he knows the adrenaline running through his veins is the reason why Harry feels so light, but it scares the absolute fuck out of him, the way Harry feels so small. Harry Styles is not small; he's tall and he's lean, he's big and he's bright and he doesn't do anything halfway.

It's not like the movies, Louis realizes. Nobody is rushing forward to help him because Harry doesn't appear to be that sick, they probably think he's okay enough to be on the bottom of the list, and Louis' stuck flailing for words.

"He has leukemia," Louis gasps out, staring at a nurse with wide eyes. "He's received chemo the last six days, he's been coughing, he -- blood, there's been --" but he can't get out any more words because then the theatrics start. Doctors come towards him with a stretcher and Harry's being lifted out of his arms. Harry tries holding onto Louis' shirt, but one of the doctors pry his fingers away and only then does Louis realize how terrified Harry looks. 

"You're going to be fine, it's going to be okay, I love you, it's going to be fine" Louis tells him. He tries keeping as much fear out of his voice as he can, but it's still shaky a small. They're pushing Harry's shoulders back and putting something over his mouth, and Harry's reaching for him and kicking out lightly. Louis tries keeping up with them as much as can, but then Harry's been carted into a room and the doors shutting and someone is telling him he has to wait in the waiting room. 

Everything kind of blurs together after that. He vaguely remembers pacing and crying in the waiting room, but it feels so long ago. He left the waiting room after he noticed a young girl filming him. He shot her an ugly look and he can only imagine how many people have watched it by now, but that's obviously not what he's worrying about. After asking a nurse to come find him if anything changes, Louis showed himself outside. Out here, he feels more exposed, but there's no teenage girl recording him at the lowest point of his life.

Anne has been inside for an hour already when Liam, Nick, and Zayn show up. They all come in one car, and Louis wonders if they were still at the party (because it was a party, it totally was) when Louis texted in what Niall calls the 'Harry Group Chat' that Harry's not invited in, but all of his friends are. And all of his so called friends are probably still at Nick's right now, and they aren't here. They aren't here when Harry's potentially dying in a hospital bed right now. 

"Where the fuck is Niall?" Louis questions lowly, not looking at any of them as they stand in front of him. Nick's wearing ridiculous slippers and Liam's antsy on his feet. 

"He left the party,"  _ see _ , "a while ago with some girl," Zayn answers. 

"She's not some girl," Nick snaps, "her name is Natalie and she's lovely."

"I don't give a fuck about some bird named fucking Natalie," Louis snaps, looking up to glare at Nick. He looks pale and tired, and Louis knows he looks worse. "Harry's got fucking pneumonia." Anne's been texting him updates, thank god, but none of them are good. They're getting worse as they keep coming. "He's probably going to die."

"Don't say that," Nick demands, eyebrows furrowed.

"His liver is fucked." All the anger in his chest is begging to be released, and nobody deserves to be on the other end of it except maybe Nick. "His liver was fucked before, but now it's fucked even more because he stopped fucking breathing. They've got in working again but now he's going to need to start taking medicine for that, too." His hands are shaking. He tucks them in his pockets. "It's in both of his lungs. Can you understand even a little bit of how bad that is? He can't breathe on his own right now."

"When was the last update on him?" Zayn asks, sitting down next to Louis on the ground. He reeks of smoke, and Louis wants a cigarette so badly. 

What a fucking stupid thing to think.

"Ten, fifteen minutes ago. They've got the fluid drained from his lungs. He's doing really bad; he'd be dead right now if it weren't for the machines keeping him alive." He hates how cold he sounds when he says it, but it's the truth and he doesn't care that it makes all three of them flinch. They deserve the truth. "If we were at home, I would've noticed something was wrong," Louis murmurs darkly, eyes still fixed on Nick.

Nick truly looks like he might vomit with Louis' words, and Louis sometimes forgets how close they are. Harry doesn't get to see him all too much because of touring, which is now something they don't have to worry about, so it's easy to forget that Harry spent most of his nineteenth year at Nick's flat. They're best friends. And Louis doesn't mind torturing him with the blame and guilt that Louis' plagued with himself. 

"He coughed a few times at my house, sure, but I didn't think he had bloody pneumonia. I had no way of knowing, Louis." He sounds near tears. "Neither did you. You didn't notice, either."

"I would've if we were home," Louis repeats, and he stands to his feet. Nick doesn't move back any, and Louis can't come with any good reasons not to kill him right now. "And, by the way, what the actual fuck were you thinking, throwing a fucking party?"

"It wasn't a party."

"It was a fucking party and you know it." There's nothing Louis hates more than people playing dumb. "I don't necessarily care that you did it, I care that you did it behind my back. You can't fucking do that, Nick. I know you don't understand it that well, but I'm the only one who knows exactly how to take care of him right now. Besides his doctors, I'm the only one. Do you realize how bad something could've gone? And I wouldn't have been there to fix it."

Nick swallows. His eyes are shining with tears. "He's told me everything. He told me what to do when something happens. I knows the symptoms of infection, I know he has trouble eating, I know - "

"You don't know that his doctors unofficially gave him one to three months until he’s too weak to do anything useful by himself," Louis says, and it's purely to put that look of shock on Nick's face. It works, and he feels good about it for about two seconds until Louis remembers Harry didn't want anyone to know except his mum, his sister and Louis, and Louis just spit it out at Nick because he's upset. That's not fair.

Liam closes his eyes. "I thought we agreed no secrets about him."

Tears are threatening to come pouring down Louis' cheeks, and no. He doesn't want to cry right now. He's mad, so he's going to stay mad. 

"Louis," Nick chokes out, and he needs a shoulder to cry on right now but Louis isn't available for that. Louis shakes his head at him and turns around to go back inside, and he hears someone let out a loud cry and he knows it's Nick, he knows it is, but he refuses to believe it. 

Louis' on his way to go cry in a bathroom stall because he needs it right now. He hasn't let himself have a proper cry since all of this started, and he needs to let this all out so badly. He needs to cry and shake and scream, not to let it out in small increments through anger. He doesn't seem to be allowed, because Anne's rushing towards him and her face is wet and he knows something's wrong. Again. 

"He's gone into shock," Anne cries. "Septic shock, he's -- his whole body is shutting down, Louis. His body's giving up on him."

She sinks into his arms and he holds her, and all he can do is pray to a god he doesn't believe in that if Harry's going to go, he better be let go quick and painless. 

-

Four different doctors and nurses have told Louis that it's a miracle that Harry's alive, and Louis tells every single one of them that it was no miracle, that Harry is strong and he did it all by himself. Each time, he's met with a sad smile and a pat on the back. They also tell him that nobody's allowed in Harry's room until a few hours after Harry is awake. 

Liam, Nick, and Zayn seemed to have made a collective decision to ignore him, which Louis doesn't think is very fair. Maybe it wasn't right to throw that on them like it was nothing, but that's exactly what Harry did to him earlier in the night. And Louis thinks he has a goddamn right to be a little crazy right now. His boyfriend has cancer, and now pneumonia. 

Jay and Lottie are now here, too, but Louis doesn't speak to either of them. It seems way too easy right now to throw himself in the arms of his mother and cry until he can't anymore, so it's easier if he just stays quiet. 

The media has already sunk their claws into this new story, and it's scary how accurate their stories are. Louis' itching to yell at some no-good magazine site, but as far as he's concerned, the ones that matter have the story right. Harry has pneumonia and went into shock, and he can't breathe on his own right now, and he could die, and Louis carried him inside the ER. He's not sure how they get these details, but they have them, and now it's practically confirmed that Harry's gay and in love with Louis, and it's not fair that he has to deal with this, too. 

After about thirty minutes of the seven of them staring at the wall opposite of them, Nick turns to him. "He's my best friend," Nick says quietly. "I know you don't like me, and I know I'm probably not his best friend, but he's mine. I love him. I'd do anything for him. And it's not fair of you to tell me that out of a place of anger. You're hurting, and I get that. We all are. But you need to understand that you're the only person he needs right now." Nick wipes at his cheeks hurriedly. "He doesn't need anybody but you. And that kills us all."

Louis' not going to apologize for that. It's not his fault Harry doesn't need them like he needs Louis. 

"It's not fair that you tell him who he can and can't hang out with. We're all panicking right now, breaking our hands with efforts to try and see him every chance we can, and it's not fair for you to eat up all his time."

"Shut the fuck up," Louis snaps. "He's my boyfriend."

"And he's all of our friend, Louis. We barely got to see him when he was healthy, he was too busy touring the world every year with you. You got to be right next to him then, too. And now he's home, he's in London, and we barely see him still."

"He sleeps the majority of the day," Louis tells him, glaring at him. "He goes to bed at six pm most nights, and wakes up at noon if he can, if he doesn't have chemo. On days he's not filled with poison, I only get six hours with him." 

It's funny how everyone talks about this like it's been going on for more than two months.

"And we get none," Nick points out. "All we get are texts. That's the only proof we have that he's still alive."

A fire is burning in Louis' stomach filled with red hot rage. Nick must know how much stress Louis is under right now, and it's not fair to press him at a time like this. Harry might die. He's not out of the woods yet with this pneumonia. And if he ends up okay in that aspect, he still has cancer. He still has leukemia. There's a possibility that what Nick is saying is right, but Louis can't hear it right now. 

"You don't get it," Louis whispers, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He's seconds away from exploding. 

"We all love him, Louis. All of us. And all of us will miss him like mad if he goes, and we want the opportunity to make memories with him while we still can."

He can feel those words tug at the last strong strand holding him together, and he finally falls apart. No, he won't cry out of sadness right now, but all of these emotions can come out in anger, too, and they will. 

"Do you know how fucking scary it is to find your person when you're only eighteen? No, you don't, Nick. You don't because you're, like, fucking thirty and still don't have someone under lock and key. But Harry's it for me, and he always has been, and he always will be. I'm nothing without him. I don't know how to live without him, don't you understand that?"

Nick looks sad. "You're still somebody without him, Louis."

"No, I'm not. That's the problem. He's been there for me since the beginning, since we were launched around the world with just each other. I couldn't do this whole famous thing if it wasn't for him. I couldn't. I would've broken a long time ago. I can't do this without him."

It doesn't feel better yet. 

"If he dies, all of you will grieve and mourn and move on. You might miss him like a limb, but you'll move on, you know you will. Everyone will. You all have families and boyfriends and girlfriends who'll help you through it, and -- he _ is _ my family, Nick. He's my family. He's the man I want to have kids with, who I want to spend the rest of my life with. I won't be able to move on from him. I know I won't, I know it."

"Louis -- "

"No, stop. Just fucking stop." He's glaring at Nick now. He doesn't remember moving. "I'm the one who had to hold him when his organs were exploding. I'm the one who has blood on my collar because he was hacking up a lung. So I'm sorry if I want to be the one who also helps him through his good times, because I can't take only being there for the bad ones."

He still doesn't feel better. Why doesn't he feel better?

"Anne is the only one who understands how I feel. That's it. And you don't get to pretend that you ever will." He stands with that, because he's so sick of sitting and waiting. He sits and waits for Harry to wake up, sits and waits for him to be done with chemo, sits and waits for him to be okay. 

"He's going to wake up soon," Nick tells him quietly. "He's going to want you here. Don't leave."

Louis scoffs, disbelieving. "You've been trying to tell me for the last hour that you want more time with him, so fine. Be there for him when he wakes up. I'm going home to wash the blood off my toilet seat."

"You're going to regret this," Zayn says, very serious. "You can't leave now."

"I'm not fucking leaving. I'll be back before noon." He doesn't even know what he's talking about, he's just making it up as he goes. 

"He's terrified of you quitting on him." It's Anne now, and Louis is so sick of people trying to act like they know what they're talking about. "He's going to be so sad if you aren't here, Louis. Don't you dare do that to him."

"I'll be back soon, god. It's clear you lot think I'm being selfish, that I spend too much time with him, so fine. Fine."

As he storms away with his hands in his pocket and his head down, he knows he's making a mistake. He wants to be here for Harry when he wakes up, he does, and he doesn't know why he's leaving. It's not a pride thing, and it's not because of the rage in his chest, it's because of something else. Something dumb that he can't even put his finger on, but he lets it take him all the way home, each red light creating more distance between him and Harry. 

He reaches his breaking point almost fifteen minutes after he comes home. He threw his coat off at the door and marched straight towards the bathroom, and got right to work.He puts gloves on and just gets to it.

It's sitting on the toilet's tank and it takes him ten minutes of cleaning before he notices it. He doesn't know how he didn't see it until then, but he didn't, and Louis' breakdown comes now. Harry had brought in an old, ratty teddy bear in the bathroom with him, probably for comfort. In the earlier days of their relationship, the days they could go out as a band and not get mobbed, Louis had won Harry that stupid bear for Harry at a carnival. It spends most of his days in the drawer next to their bed, even though Louis found it embarrassing. Harry didn't want to wake Louis with his coughing, but he wanted Louis there, so he brought the dumb bear and Louis' whole heart has been ripped out and thrown onto the floor. 

Harry has leukemia and he's probably going to die, and Liam and Zayn hate him right now, and Harry's going to be mad at Louis for telling them about his prognosis, and Louis is so scared he's going to have sit back and watch Harry deteriorate right before his eyes that it hurts to breathe. 

He sobs his heartbreaks into the worn out fur of the bear, and none too surprisingly, he falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. 

When he wakes, it is light outside and Louis knows he's fucked up. He only meant to fall asleep for a few minutes, but he should've known it would've been longer than that. He only got two hours of sleep last night, and he's gone through so much emotional turmoil this morning. He should've known, and he needs to leave and get to the hospital right now. 

Still with the bear in hand, he rushes to the front door and finds his jacket that has his keys and his phone. His fingers are trembling when he opens his phones to see so many missed calls and texts, and all he can hope is that Harry's not dead. 

He's not, thank fuck, according to some strongly worded messages from Liam. 

_ He's awake _ , it says.  _ He's fucking terrified that you aren't here, get here now _ , says another.  _ Louis mate I mean it he is absolutely bricking it right now without you,  _ and  _ I've never seen him look so sad or cry so much, seriously Louis.  _ And then one from about a half hour ago:  _ at least tell me you're okay.  _

It's noon, and according to Liam, Harry's been awake since eight in the morning. Harry's been missing him and scared for four whole hours, and Louis will never, ever forgive himself for this. 

It's clear that Anne feels the same exact way, because she shoots him a look made of something nasty. It's not even anger or sadness; it's pure, cold disappointment. She's sitting tiredly in the waiting room, and Louis knows he has to talk to her to make sure he's all caught up to speed. 

"You've got a lot of nerve, Louis," she tells him, and Louis' throat feels like it's full of glass. "I'm going to yell at you for this later, I promise. But right now, he needs you. Niall and Gemma are with him right now -- only two people allowed at a time -- but Niall only got here an hour ago, so send out Gemma." Her disappointment fades into sadness. "He's on a ventilator. He still can't breathe by himself. He'll be on it for about seven days until they try and remove it. He can't talk. He'll write to you, but they've got him on drugs that make him kind of out of it."

Louis nods, fingers twisting in the bear's fur. "I need to see him. Can I go now?"

"Yes."

He already knows what room he's in, so he doesn't waste anymore time. He walks, turns right, walks, turns left, and he's there, and he stares at the door for a few seconds. Harry could've died while Louis was home throwing a hissy fit. Louis could've missed out on a last goodbye. He doesn't understand what he was thinking. 

After cursing his own existence, he opens the door and immediately, he feels the weight of how badly he's screwed up. Not only does he recognize how much he's missed -- all of the new tubes and the new contraption that fit itself against Harry's mouth and nose, the notepad and pen in his lap --, it also becomes painfully obvious that Harry is sad. There's dried tear tracks down his cheeks and Niall is holding onto his hand, and Niall has yet to treat Harry like a patient until now. 

"Gemma," Louis forces himself to say, because she and Niall are just staring at him. Harry doesn't seem to understand that someone new has come into the room, and his neck slowly moves to look at the door. Instantly, he tries to sit up and fails miserably, his hands barely even lifting him up an inch. It seems to make him panic, because he squeezes his eyes shut and throws his head back before kicking out, and now Niall and Gemma aren't staring at him, they're glaring at him.

"Fix this," she snaps, and with that, she storms out of the room. 

He ignores Niall's cold look, has to, in order to calm down Harry. He sets a shaking palm on Harry's hot cheeks, and with a quick look at the screen of a big, loud machine, Louis sees he has a slight fever. The doctors obviously already must know that, so he focuses on shushing Harry and pressing small little kisses to his face, because he can't get to his mouth with the ventilator.

Eventually, Harry calms down and he settles for wide, terrified eyes that are bleeding tears that Louis put there. He did that. He's a terrible person. 

"I fell asleep," Louis tells him, because that's partly the truth and it might help soothe Harry's fear of abandonment. "I had to run home really quickly and I fell asleep. I'm sorry." He brushes away Harry's tears with one hand, and he sits down on the bed. The bear is still squished in his other hand, and he slowly shows it to Harry as a sort of peace offering. Harry's hand slowly comes to reach for it, but Louis has to shake his head and reach over to put it on Harry's bed side. "It's dirty as hell," Louis explains, and Harry nods. He knows the rules.

Harry's fingers twitch before they grasp the pen in his right hand tightly, and he writes something out for Louis. Everything he does is slow. Louis is patient, and he watches carefully as Harry writes out,  _ thought you left me. were gone. _

"I know, I'm sorry. I'll never leave you, you know that."

_ mum's mad at u. _

"She should be."

_ I'm not mad at u. I love you. _

Louis' heart is going to absolutely shatter one day because of the boy in front of him, and it hurts so much to know that. "I love you, too," Louis chokes out, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut for a few moments to will the tears to leave him alone. 

_ you've been crying. don't want you sad. _

"How can you even tell that, love?"

Instead of writing his response, Harry brings his hand up to poke at Louis' cheeks. Louis doesn't know what it's supposed to mean, but Harry quickly goes back to writing.  _ puffy. always puffy when u cry. _

"Oh." He didn't know that.

_ they can't do chemo when i'm this sick. start again in three weeks. _

It makes sense, it does; Harry's body couldn't possibly take anymore poison right now. And he only had a day left before this round was over, and then it would begin all over again in three weeks. 

Harry taps his finger against the pad of paper, and Louis hates it, but he doesn't know what he's asking. Before he can work it out, Niall's making his presence known again, and he reaches in between them to flip to a fresh sheet for Harry. Oh. 

_ immune system will build a little. won't get sick like this again for a while. _

It's not true. Harry can get sick like this at any time. He forces a small smile on his face, anyway. He’s not going to screw with Harry’s hope; a positive outlook on things can actually improve Harry’s chances of getting better. "That's good, darling." He reaches for Harry's free hand, and he can't really hold it with all the tubes, so he just lays it on top of his. Harry moves to intertwine their pinkies. Louis' going to be sick.

_ nick is upset. don't like it when u fight :( _

"I was an asshole to him," Louis admits, frowning gently. "I'll apologize. I will."

Harry nods once before writing,  _ wanna hear good news?  _

His frown deepens, and it shouldn't, but he can't possibly think anything good could be going on right now. For a half a second, he thinks Harry's delirious. Harry gives Niall a look, and Niall's smiling. 

_ " _ What?" Louis asks, confused. 

"Chemo's starting to work," Niall says brightly. "They ran some tests. Dr. Cabot said it's still not working as much as it should be, or that it normally does, but it's working. Chemo can still be his main source of treatment."

And that's the best news Louis can hear behind Harry's cancer free. He does cry then, again, and he reaches forward to shove his face into Harry's neck, murmuring nonsensical things that not even he can make sense of. He's just so happy, and he doesn't deserve to hear this news after what he did. Their pinkies are still intertwined, and even though Louis still feels like he can't breathe, the bricks on his chest loosen up some. 

When Harry writes something new for Louis, he squeezes Louis' pinky the best he can. Louis pulls back to see that Harry has doodled a bunch of smiley faces all over his fresh sheet of paper, all of them around the words  _ wanna hear some good news?  _ and  _ chemo's working, yay!!  _ Louis sniffles a little at it and laughs, takes Harry's pen to draw some of his own smiley faces, except his have x's for eyes. Something churns inside of him, something like excitement, which he hasn't felt in a really long time. 

"Can I post our collage here on Instagram?" He gives Harry back his pen for his response, and it takes Harry a few sad seconds to get his grip back on it. "I can keep the stuff about the chemo out of it if you want."

Harry draws another small smiley face next to Louis', and Louis takes that as a yes and he quickly whips out his phone to snap a picture of it. He posts it without a caption, and before Louis can celebrate any further, Harry's tapping on the sheet of paper. Now being caught up, Louis quickly folds back that piece of paper (he'll tear it out later and keep it forever) to give Harry more space to write. 

_ really really tired :( on loads of new meds. sucks. _

"Go to bed then," Louis tells him immediately. He reaches back to puff the pillows back up for Harry, the way he likes, and smooths down his hair. "Don't try and stay awake. You need sleep. Listen to your body."

_ Dr. Tommo,  _ Harry writes, and it makes Louis smile and kind of want to cry.  _ You'll be here when I wake, yeah?  _

A pang of hurt shoots against Louis' heart. "Of course. Right here. Promise."

_ don't want you gone again. was scared.  _

"God, H. I'm sorry."

_ just don't go again :) _

"I won't. Promise, promise, promise." He tightens his grip on Harry's pinky.

_ good. goodnight xxx _

Louis moves the pad of paper and pen away from Harry so he can sleep comfortably, and it only takes a few minutes for him to fall asleep. Since a machine is breathing for him, his breaths don't become quieter or shallower, but all the muscles in his face become less tense and his finger is barely wrapped around Louis' anymore. It's okay.

-

After a terrible, terrible nightmare that Louis will probably never tell anybody about, he's stuck watching the cars go by from a few floors down on the road. Normally, he would walk over to the window for a little while to entertain himself a bit more, but he's going to keep his arse glued to this chair until Harry wakes up. He had to wee before he fell asleep, but that's the only time he's allowing himself to move.

Anne's joined him on the other side of Harry now, and both of them are painfully aware they only have an hour left of visiting hours. He selfishly hopes Harry will wake up before then, but at the same time, he won't be surprised if he doesn't. 

"Do you ever think about what your last words to him might be?" Anne wonders, almost to herself, as she glances up at Louis. She's been reading a book, and by the sound of her question, it's not a happy one. "If he were to go. . . so many people have horror stories of their last words being out of spite or anger. 'I hate you' and all that. He's scared of that, you know."

Louis blinks tiredly. "I didn't."

"He told me so once. A few days ago. You were upstairs sleeping and he needed help getting to the bathroom." She bookmarks her spot in the book and puts it next to the bear on the table. "He can be so stubborn sometimes, you know?" She looks thoughtful for a moment, and a small smile folds her lips.. "I reckon arguments between the two of you are unbearable. Both so stubborn and unwilling to bend, even in the slightest."

Louis nods once. "He's usually the one that bends in the end, if I'm honest." Harry is stubborn, yes, but he’s not stupid with it like Louis is. Usually he can come out of it and realize when he’s being unreasonable; Louis just keeps going at it and at it, no matter what. 

She smiles softly. "He wouldn't let me help him. And I -- " she shakes her fist against her lap. "I know he can handle it on his own, I know that. And if he can't, he has you to handle it for him. It's just. . ."

"Frustrating," he offers. He knows it is. There are some days that Harry gets frustrated with it, too, although he usually tries to hide it. 

"Yes, that. Frustrating. I had gotten very stern with him, not shouting, but he. . . he told me to stop yelling at him."

Louis licks his lips. Harry's told him that quite a few times as of late.

"And I had asked him what he meant, because I hadn't been yelling." She reaches forward to smooth out his blanket, and Louis silently wishes he had seen the wrinkles first. "He's scared someone's last words to him are going to be hurtful, and that they're going to regret him if he goes."

_ Goes. _ He hates that. It sugarcoats a very scary situation that can't be glossed over. Louis gnaws on his bottom lip and stares at Harry for a few moments before swallowing the lump in his throat. "Do you think he thinks he's going to die?"

"He's hopeful, Louis."

"I know that." He shifts in his chair slightly. "But do you think he has, like, a hunch, or something, that he's going to die? He's been talking about death since the beginning of all of this."

She thinks hard for a moment, and her eyebrows furrow and then she starts nodding a bit. "I think he might. Or maybe he's just preparing for the worst."

Louis doesn't have time to respond, because there's small, choked coughs coming from Harry's throat. It bucks up the ventilator slightly, and Louis can feel his heart stop, but then Harry stops coughing and everything's okay again. He opens his eyes blearily as even more proof, and for a minute, Louis regains the strength to get through this.

-

It truly goes up from there. It's only been a few more months, three rounds of chemo later, and another scary incident of Harry not being ready to breathe without the ventilator until a few more days, but Louis has got a feeling that things are going to be okay for a while. Harry's smiling more and Anne's no longer holding her breath, and Louis doesn't have a meltdown when Liam brings up the idea of going to the beach, just the five of them. 

Okay, maybe he does. It's just. . . "The beach, Li, seriously?" he snaps, but Harry's face is already glowing with the thought. "The water is filthy, and the _ people _ , Liam, do you know how many people -- "

"We're going," Harry declares, his hat tickling Louis' chin as he moves. There's no hair under it anymore, and Harry took it better than Louis thought he was going to. Neither of them cried when Louis shaved his head. It was a good experience for both of them, and it was actually pretty fun, if it wasn't for the circumstances. Harry's not embarrassed of his bald head -- he says that people can't make hair jokes anymore, so he takes it as a win -- but it does make him get cold easily, so his beanie stays on. Everyone got together for a small gathering at their house a little while back, and everyone who doesn't have two left thumbs (Niall) partnered up to knit their very own hat for Harry to wear. It was as wholesome as it sounds, and now Harry has a whole box of beanies next to his bed that he picks through every morning, trying to find the one that he wants to wear that day.. 

"Baby," Louis tries, but Harry shakes his head. Louis vaguely recalls that the hat he's wearing now is from Kendall and Georgia. 

"I won't go in the water." He makes a face. "Okay, I won't swim. But I'm gonna put my feet in and walk around a bit."

"And if you get cut?" Louis snaps, harsher than he intends. He pats the little puffball on his hat to apologize, even though he knows Harry doesn’t take his harshness to heart. Harry knows that Louis is just painfully worried about him. "If a rock or something cuts you, and you're in that disgusting water, you're going to get an infection."

"Have you ever heard of water shoes, Lewis?"

Louis doesn't laugh. "If we go when it's the warmest for you, everyone else is going to be there, Haz."

"So we go super early in the morning and we bring loads of blankets." He looks up at Louis with big, wide eyes. "You won't let me get cold."

And honestly, Louis doesn't count that as a meltdown because he says yes in the end without any other fuss. He makes Liam, Niall, and Zayn come with him when Dr. Bradford runs over the risks, what to do when's, and tips, and eventually, they get the okay and Harry grins so widely that Louis feels bad for every wanting to deny him of this.

There's not much to do to get ready for their trip, and since Harry is relatively healthy at the moment (aside from the obvious), the only thing Louis needs to worry about medically-speaking is making sure Harry stays that way. And he also is slightly paranoid that they’re going to get in trouble for, like, trespassing or something, but Harry tells him he can just wave the cancer card and all will be forgiven. 

Louis tells him it's not a card. Harry just laughs. 

The ride there is something so pure and full of happiness that it almost shocks Louis. Liam drives and there's no talk of cancer or pneumonia or chemo, or anything bad that's been plaguing all of their lives for the last few months. It's Harry telling crappy jokes with his pinky wrapped around Louis', because that's their thing now, and Niall laughing hysterically at them all. It's Zayn picking the music and Liam complaining about it. It's Niall in charge of bringing snacks and him eating all of them. It's Liam digging up stories from their past, and all of them laughing at them. The only dark spot on the way there is Louis, who can't exactly bring himself to do anything other than laugh and secretly make sure Harry's okay every second. He used to be the loud, rambunctious one and now he has to force himself to join in on the banter and it's. . . strange. 

"Can you turn the heat up?"' Harry asks after trying to do it himself from the back middle. Zayn and Liam both reach for it at the same, and shit, Louis might not have to worry the entire time today. 

"You okay?" Louis lets himself ask, because he hasn't asked it since they left, and that was almost an hour ago. He's not sure where they're going; Liam just keeps saying a beach. 

"I'm great," he tells him, beaming. His hat is falling off his head a bit, so Louis pulls it back down over his ears. "I'm really good, Louis. Don't worry, I'll tell you if anything is off." And yeah, Harry had told him he learned his lesson for not telling Louis something was wrong when he noticed his cough was more from a sore throat. 

Niall shouts at Zayn to turn off his "stupid gangster-rock shit", and then a slower song comes on that isn't terrible, so Liam starts going on and on about how much Liam and Louis didn't get along during the X-Factor, and it doesn't surprise anybody too much when Harry dozes off sleep, his head falling against Louis' shoulder. 

"Guess you aren't that great of a story-teller, Payno," Niall tells him, and Louis can't help but feel like that was supposed to be his line. 

Harry wakes up confused and a bit sad a half hour later, and Louis fills him in on everything he missed ("Niall farted and Zayn called Liam a cuntbucket, that's about it") and Harry starts smiling again and everything's okay. Everything's okay, and Harry's alive, and everybody's laughing and Louis can't figure out why he still feels like he can't breathe. 

The look on Harry's face when they pull up to the parking lot that looks out to a crappy, trash-filled beach is something Louis will truly never, ever forget. His eyes light up and he looks shocked for a moment, like he would when he was staring out at thousands of people, and then a wide grin stretches across his face as he takes a deep breath. 

"It looks like somebody was buried alive here," Zayn says, though he doesn't sound too disappointed by it.

"That's the point," Liam says, grinning at Harry. "Nobody will be here. It's just going to be us."

Niall and Liam run towards the water, and Harry's smile slips for a second. Louis knows he wants to be running alongside them, but he's too tired for that, too weak right now. But Louis grabs his pinky with his and Harry starts to glow again, and it's all that Louis needs. 

"I love you," Louis whispers, and Harry says it right back.

Louis still can't fucking breathe. 

Zayn, Niall, and Liam splash around in the water while Louis and Harry curl up together in the sand. It's a cheesy movie-moment that Louis didn't think existed in rea life, but apparently they do because Harry is watching them with a fond smile as he rests against Louis' chest. It's not too cold outside, so Harry took off his hat to "make some of this pasty-ness go away.” They have music blasting, this time Harry's pick, and Louis is holding onto him so tightly just so he can remember this memory clearer in the future. 

"Wanna walk around," Harry says after about a half hour. Niall jumps on Liam's back and shoves them both under the water while Zayn rolls his eyes. "Got my water shoes," he hums and he sits up to pull them over his feet. The way Louis' hand instinctively goes to grip onto his arm worries them both, and Louis prays that Harry will ignore it. He doesn't. "I want you to see someone, Lou."

For a burning hot second he thinks he's talking about another man, and his whole system goes haywire with rejection. 

Harry covers his mouth with his hand before he can say anything. "A therapist. I mean a therapist. Calm down."

It's not what Louis' expecting him to say. If anybody needs a therapist, it's Harry. Louis' not the one with fucking cancer. What would a therapist even say to him? 

"I'm worried about you, love," Harry whispers. "You have to stop worrying about me so much."

"I can't," Louis says around Harry's hand. Harry presses his hand against his mouth harder. 

"Please, Louis. See someone. You aren't handling this right."

Something nasty spins around in Louis' stomach, and Louis moves Harry's hand away. "I'm sorry, I must've fucking missed the book about how to handle your boyfriend's cancer right. Tell me, Harry, how the fuck do I handle this right?"

"Don't yell at me," he responds, face falling. "Please don't yell at me."

"Harry -- "

"What would you do if our kid was feeling like this?" Harry says out of nowhere, face pulled into a serious expression. "You're not sleeping as much as you should, and your entire life revolves around worrying about me. If one of our kids felt like they were suffocating under the weight of something they couldn't control, what would you do?"

They've talked about kids, they have. Many times. Especially lately. But they always talk about them like it was a good dream, and they've never talked about their hypothetical children in a bad light. Louis would rather die than see his kids --  _ their  _ kids -- feeling what he's feeling, and oh, Louis guesses he gets it now.

"Fine," Louis breathes out, looking away from Harry and towards the sea. He'll do it, for Harry and for his future-children, but he's not going to talk about it on their beach day. He grabs Harry's hand and pulls him up to his feet, and the purple blanket that Phoebe and Daisy picked out for him falls to the sand. Louis grabs it and shakes it out before wrapping it back around Harry's shoulders, and he also grabs Harry's hat because from the way Niall and Zayn are shivering, the water is cold. This hat is the one Nick and Tyler made him. It's uneven and wonky, but Harry grins and slides it over his head. 

"Come on, Lou. Let's have fun."

They have fun, they do. Harry keeps shoving Louis when he's not expecting it, and one particular hard thrust almost sent Louis face first into the cold water, and he's only doing it because he can without any repercussions. Louis won't push him back, can't, and he loves being a pain in the ass. They walk with their ankles in the water for about twenty minutes, and then Harry shoots him a guilty look and Louis knows he's too tired to continue. Louis' not ready to stop living in this moment, so he grabs Harry's middle with one arm and one of his legs with the other, and Harry gets the hint and puts all his weight on Louis before adding his other leg to the mix. Harry's gained some weight back so it's not easy by any means, but Louis carries him until his arms burn and even then, he keeps moving. 

"So," Harry says after a while. His head is resting against Louis' shoulder while his arms cling around Louis' neck, and Louis should really be offended that he's so scared that Louis will drop him. "Kids."

"Kids," Louis repeats, because he's not sure what context they're going to have this conversation in; far away, whimsical fantasies or a very possible, very soon reality. 

"I want them. A lot of them."

Louis laughs. "How many are we talking?"

There's a pause of silence and Louis nearly breaks his neck to make sure Harry's still alive. He is; he's just thinking. "I wanna have a big family like yours. Want our kids to have lots of support within their siblings."

There's a swell of pride in his chest. "Okay. We just have to make sure we have them closer together, you know? I hate being a full grown adult while Doris and Ernie are just little babies. They'll never know me like Lottie or Fizz do."

"How are we gonna do it?" Harry wonders. "Like, adoption or a surrogate?"

"Adoption," Louis says, much too quickly. He frowns, sighing gently. "I'm not going to risk getting attached to a baby and then have the mother miscarriage."

"Bad things happen, Louis." Harry sounds so, so tired. "We could adopt a little baby and then the next day they could be gone. It's just reality."

"Adoption," Louis says again, and they're nearing where they started. Liam, Niall, and Zayn are all stretched out on the beach now. It's obvious they're only doing this for Harry, and Louis loves them all for it. "Wanna lay down for a little bit?" Louis asks, and Harry nods against his chest. Louis trudges through the sand to get them back to the safe space of their towel. It's a bit further away from everybody else's, and again, Louis loves them all so much. 

Harry stretches across his chest, and Louis gets a good view of how shitty of a job Nick did on this hat, but whatever. The rising sun beats down on them and Harry seems to thrive off it, and Harry also seems to get more tired. As he traces small shapes against the soft flesh of Louis' belly, he looks up at Louis and for a second, all the air in Louis' lungs is gone solely from how breathtakingly beautiful Harry is. "I'm gonna get better, Louis. I promise. We're gonna get those kids together. I promise."

It's the first time Harry talks about his recovery as if it's a sure thing. He's always had a hopeful undertone, but this is something different. This isn't hope, this is a promise. And Louis' terrified Harry's setting them both up for heartbreak with it.

-

Seven months of chemo, pain, and suffering, a case of pneumonia and septic shock, hundreds of arguments, and thousands of tears later, Harry is in remission. Cancer-free. He didn't break his promise, and he's okay again, and Louis' never going to have to step foot in a cancer facility again. 

When Dr. Bradford tells them the news, they both cry and they both swear they'll spend every second of the borrowed time they're being given together. They go home and fuck, both of them shaking and crying and touching each other with soft fingertips and gentle kisses, and it's the slowest they've done it since their first time together. Afterwards, Harry posts a picture to Twitter of the bin of all his beanies that reads, _ so long, my cozy friends. won't be needing you anymore. how long does it take for hair to grow back? _ and then Louis posts a picture of the stupid teddy bear that no longer lives in the bottom drawer of their nightstand, but on top of it, captioned with,  _ don't know who's happier he's home, Mr. Cuddles or me. love you H. cancer sucks ass. xxx _

They have a proper party a month later when Harry's almost completely back to his old self, and they don't call it a small gathering. There they tell everyone they have a big announcement that is small, and Liam asks if they're finally getting married, and oh, they maybe should've done that first but it doesn't matter, they'll do it eventually, and their little baby that's going to be in their home so, so soon already has Tomlinson-Styles on the papers, anyways. It’s going to be somewhat of a long process, adoption, but it’s okay, because they have all the time in the world again.

Harry's okay, and for the first time in eight months, Louis can finally breathe again.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, leave a comment if you feel like it :)
> 
> also. . . may or may not have a sequel in the works. xx


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